


Touching the Void

by calavarna



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Slight crossover with Doctor Who, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 00:24:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1760651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calavarna/pseuds/calavarna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ianto finds himself in wartime London and in the clutches of a strange but familiar conman, he struggles to find a balance between revealing the future and creating a paradox. Meanwhile, Jack tries to get Ianto back while dealing with a head full of memories that aren't his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touching the Void

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Tardis Big Bang Round 1 in 2008. Thanks to Snakeling for the wonderfully quick beta job and Mylodon for not talking me out of signing up when I asked her to.

Ianto wakes with a scream on his lips. His last memory – a flash of light, a startled cry, immediate darkness – slowly seeps back into his consciousness bringing with it a chill that has nothing to do with the cold night air. His suit is drenched from the puddles of water filling the deserted alley he lies in, his body bruised from his passage through the Rift, and try as he may, his limbs lack the strength and coordination to allow him to climb to his feet. A stray thought crosses his mind, his aching, overworked, stress-laden mind, that he is very probably dead. He should be, as far as he can tell. The Rift is no child’s toy and in his experience the deaths it has wrought far outweigh the gifts of life. It brought Jack back but the price they had paid had borne a harsh warning. There are always consequences when the gateway to space and time is used unwisely.

A deep, loud hum fills the cold air around Ianto, disturbing the fragile silence of the lonely night. Flames light up the dark sky above as planes twist and dive under a blanket of cloud and smoke. Barrage balloons drift across the cover of black and red, floating, flaming, falling from the heavens down to the city below. 

Purgatory, he thinks. A war-torn city and hostile sky are his warm welcome to purgatory. It is a perfectly dismal place made familiar by the stories he has heard told late at night when he is pretending to sleep. Jack speaks of everything and nothing when he thinks he can’t be heard, when he thinks it is safe to reveal himself.

Ianto recognizes the city around him, bereft of people though it may be. He can even pinpoint the period of time, because it isn’t enough that the Godforsaken Rift had to physically move him; it also had to up and fling him through time as well. An image of Owen flashes through his mind, all sarcastic rolls of his eyes and mutterings about the bloody useless Rift causing more harm than good. For once, Ianto agrees completely – you’ve got to expect the worst when you wake to find yourself quite a way away from where you started.

It has been apparent to Ianto ever since he opened his eyes that he is neither where nor when he was before he passed out. He is in England’s capital. The early 1940s. The Blitz.

***

Ianto's strengths run more towards research than fieldwork, although he prides himself on his versatility, and having to slip quietly through damaged and deserted streets makes him more than slightly uncomfortable. A poster on a lamp post catches his eye, its words blurring into a haze of nonsense as he notes the date and turns away. 1941. It doesn't reassure him in the slightest, but at least he knows when and where he is. That will have to do for now.

His hands, cold, wet and grimy, find their way into his pockets and he feels his eyebrows rise in surprise at what he finds there. At least he’ll be able to drift through history, unremembered and largely invisible, if he can’t get back home.

He slips the sachet of retcon tablets into the pocket in the lining of his jacket, and prays he’s not around long enough to use them.

This certainly isn’t what he had signed up for when he joined Torchwood, although he hadn’t foreseen the vast majority of what he’s been through in recent years. He fights to protect his planet and in some ways that comforts him more than the horrors disturb him. It isn’t as if he’s in completely unknown territory.

Jack and Tosh made a similar journey – and one day Ianto will figure out what it is about 1941 that draws Torchwood employees there like moths to a flame – and despite the chaos that they accidentally unleashed trying to get them back, they learnt their lesson and will know what to do this time. He has to have faith that the team will succeed again.

Ianto flinches as a bomb drops with a resounding crash that sends rubble and flames flying. He sighs in annoyance, wishing that Torchwood’s training had prepared him for time travel. There is plenty of information regarding the apprehension of time travellers – in short, celebrate and take full credit for capturing the Doctor even if you didn’t do anything. Unless he gets annoyed, in which case credit your boss. Bureaucracy, there’s nothing like it – just none on what to do if out of place and time.

A strange feeling halts Ianto in his search. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he stops, looks around, furrows his brow. He could swear he is being followed, observed by watchful eyes, but the streets are bare and the sky full of danger. Only a madman would be out wandering the streets at this time.

That is the problem. He has encountered enough madmen – and women – while working at Torchwood to realise that the truly mad people are the ones you least expect. Suzie, the cannibals in Brynblaidd, Lisa...

Ianto trusts his instincts enough to know that he is too exposed out in the street. The alley he woke up in beckons, and with a brief prayer to the heavens that an axe murderer isn’t lurking in wait, he ducks into the dark lane.

***

“You look like you’re a long way from home.” A voice slides out from the shadows, closely followed by a tall, solid body.

“Jack?”

No, not Jack. Not unless the Captain has finally taken things too far and actually joined the RAF. Which, all things considered, is not beyond the realm of possibility. Ianto isn’t close enough to tell for sure but he is fairly certain that this isn’t his Jack. But Jack it is.

“Nice guess. Seems you’ve got me at a disadvantage, you know my name but I don’t know yours. Or should I just call you handsome?” The man steps forward, acting every inch the flirt Ianto knows him to be. A wink and a smile are both charmingly offered as Jack moves closer, his eyes raking an appreciative look over Ianto’s body and grinning at the blush and cautious smile he receives. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Ianto bites back a retort, something along the lines of pot, kettle, black but he realises that this isn’t the time for sarcastic comments no matter how much Jack – his Jack – enjoys them. “Not exactly, no.”

Let Jack think that he is nothing more than a Welshman away from home. Hell, let him think that Ianto is a Martian away from home just as long as Torchwood, the Rift and his boss aren’t mentioned.

“Neither am I.” Jack grins again, the flash of perfectly straight, white teeth more than proving his words.

“I know.” Ianto’s eyes widen as Jack quirks a curious eyebrow at him and he looks frantically from side to side searching for an excuse. “Your accent, it’s American, isn’t it?”

“Most people seem to think so but I think you know differently.” Jack lazily shoves his hands in the pockets of his coat, slouching and shifting his weight to one leg in an attempt to appear less curious than he actually is. “You’ve appeared at the very moment that space and time decide that they’re sick of waltzing happily along and decide to perform a violent tango.”

Ianto shrugs, inwardly throttling the people who recruited him to Torchwood, and the Doctor, and Jack – both of them. And Owen, because if he’s going to deliver threats of death, Torchwood’s medic would do well to develop an appreciation of irony. “What makes you think I know how I got here?” He isn’t challenging Jack, at least no more than he has a dozen times before. He’s more interested than anything else, both in what this Jack knows and how he is going to get home.

“Take it from me; you know more than you’re letting on. That’s fine, there’s no mystery in perfectly honest people and I love a good puzzle.” Jack straightens, dimming the humour in his voice and wiping the smile off his face. “Except you know the name I’m using and I’ve never met you before. And by the looks of it, you’re wearing an earpiece that won’t be invented for at least another few decades. First rule of the Time Agency, don’t draw attention to yourself. Still, I’ve got to find my way to your time, that’s one hell of a snappy suit you’re wearing!”

Ianto suppresses a rather insane chuckle that is building within him as Jack favours him with a flirtatious smile. He is decades and miles from home and he’s still being harassed. It is strangely comforting in a way. He passes a preening hand over his soggy suit, smoothing the crumpled fabric. “Thanks,” he says, brushing dirt and ash from his jacket and trousers. “Just so you know, if you tell me I look good in a suit or resort to making up silly rhymes about them, I may have to demand satisfaction.”

Jack’s eyebrows climb his forehead. “You know, if we're going to go down that path, and believe me, I definitely think we should, you could at least tell me your name.”

“Ianto Jones.”

“I’m Captain Jack Harkness. You know that already, I just like saying it. Suits me, don’t you think?” He winks again before gesturing to the carnage in the sky. “Come on, we should get out here.”

***

“Jack, stop!”

Gwen’s cry does nothing to halt Jack’s approach towards the smouldering machine in their basement. The flames have been extinguished, thanks to Ianto’s dogged insistence that they keep a fire extinguisher in every room and Owen’s quick thinking, but the strange contraption still sprays sparks that fall and dance across the floor, unhindered by any attempt to dismantle the volatile machine.

Untempered energy courses through Jack as he seizes the metal sheets of the outer casing and pulls, revealing the treacherous innards and spilling hot embers and cables across the floor in one swift movement.

“What is it?”

Gwen’s voice sounds far away to Jack’s ears, almost as if he is hearing her from behind a veil of time and space. He shakes his head, blinking away the slight disorientation. “It’s a Rift Manipulator.”

“What’s it doing here? We dismantled part of the one upstairs; Owen said we shouldn’t have that much power at our fingertips so we each hid a piece. How could it have got here?”

Jack raises a tired hand in an attempt to stem the flow of Gwen’s questions. That it was Owen who suggested they scatter the pieces was surprising, although in hindsight Jack suspects it was guilt that prompted the suggestion. Still, his own Rift Manipulator is the least of his worries.

He can’t waste time; he has to figure out what is going on. He’d sent Ianto down to the archives, nowhere in his orders had he said disappear into thin air. Especially when this particular room in the basement is the one door Ianto refuses to pass through.

They all refer to it as Lisa’s room – behind Ianto’s back, of course – and nobody has set foot in there since the blood had been washed away by Ianto’s furious, devoted scrubbing. Sometimes Jack wonders whether it had been tears and not bleach and water that had flushed the crimson stains from the concrete floor.

“We have to find Ianto. Get Tosh down here, she’ll be able to help with analysing the machine’s programming.”

Gwen nods and turns to leave, but not before staring hard at Jack for a moment, concern in her eyes and platitudes spilling from her mouth. “He’ll be fine, Jack.”

“I hope so.” Sometimes he wishes he has her faith. Jack bows his head as he listens to Gwen’s footsteps gradually fade along the corridor. He braces a hand against the doorway, ignoring the peeling paint of the flame scarred walls and door, and surrenders to the torrent of possibilities cycling through his mind. “Where are you?” he whispers into the silence.

A strange prickling feeling in the back of his skull stops the racing thoughts. A fluttering, almost ticklish sensation starts deep within his mind and spreads rapidly through his body, igniting a blazing trail of awareness. Flashes of memories, not his but incredibly familiar nonetheless, grow until all he can see and hear are the sight and sounds of Ianto standing in a dark alley and talking to someone.

No, not someone. Him.

He blacks out.

***

“Where are we going?” Ianto follows Jack through the deserted London streets, his hand firmly grasped in the Captain’s. On any other day he might draw back, refuse contact but the experience is distressing enough as it is. Jack is not necessarily a calming influence, Ianto’s body is far too likely to heat in his Captain’s presence, warming both blood and soul, but there is something familiar and comforting about the swish of a long coat and silver flash of RAF cuff links. Jack fits in well here.

“A little place I've got, nothing special, just a room and a bed. You’ll be safe there.” 

The narrow streets lead them across the city, out past the range of the falling bombs and downed planes. It takes over an hour, the hostile sky above them necessitating stoppages and searches for cover. The places are often small alcoves, not very safe from bombs and flames, but it affords them protection from the chilling feeling of being exposed, vulnerable. Jack does not let any opportunity pass, crowding closer than Ianto deems necessary and ignoring common convention that states that propositioning someone beneath a sky which bleeds death and destruction is bad form.

A smile quirks at the corner of Ianto’s mouth as he rolls his eyes and releases a sigh. He wishes he could rebuke this man, this mysterious, familiar man who has no concept of personal space, but he does not wish for Jack to change. He is as much a part of Ianto's life as aliens and Torchwood are. More so, in some respects.

Jack’s room is small and sparse, understandably so considering they are in wartime London, but it feels cosy despite the futuristic technology it houses. And, yes, there is a bed, Ianto notes with a wry smile. There’s always a bed when Jack is involved. It’s practically a universal constant. Or a desk, the backseat of the SUV, or (quite memorably) Owen’s autopsy table but Jack – this one – hasn’t offered any of those. If only because SUVs haven't even been invented yet.

Ianto clears his throat awkwardly and leans back against the closed door. Best keep close to his only means of escape. As familiar as this man seems, he’s not the same person. “So.”

“So,” Jack agrees, raising a curious eyebrow. “You can sit down, you know. I won’t bite. Not unless you want me to, in which case –”

“No,” Ianto says, cutting across Jack’s attempts at flirtation and shaking his head tiredly. He runs a tired hand across his face and collapses into a rickety chair in the corner. “Now’s not a good time.”

He leans forward, resting his head in his hands. The dull ache that has been a constant presence since he woke up in this time has grown into an acute throbbing that blurs his vision with every painful thud.

A loud creak of the springs in the bed announces Jack’s movement. He climbs to his feet – or at least Ianto thinks he does, having only caught a glimpse of blue out of the corner of his eye – and crosses the room with silent steps. He kneels, brushes his hand through Ianto’s hair, slides it down to brace at the neck.

“Ianto? Look at me.” Jack isn’t yelling but it certainly feels like it to Ianto’s sensitive ears. Each word slams into him, tearing through his body and doubling the pain in his head.

Jack leans forward and seizes the side of Ianto’s face in his hands. He watches closely, staring intently at unfocused eyes set in a tired face. “I think you have a concussion.”

A tilt of his head is Ianto’s only answer. His brow furrows as he tries to blink away the creeping exhaustion, the growing waves of unease. He murmurs something softly, words of nonsense to Jack’s ears, and to his own, and closes his eyes. Adrenaline, Ianto thinks, and shock. He can be forgiven for ignoring some pain in lieu of curiosity and a finely honed survival instinct. 

“You can’t kiss it better this time.”

“No.”

It’s the uncharacteristic seriousness in Jack’s voice that worries Ianto, makes him question what type of man he has taken up with. He only needs one hand to count the number of times Jack has let such a blatant opportunity for innuendo pass by, and it worries him more than the pain in his head does.

Ianto pushes aside the disorientation and shakes his head, trying to clear away the creeping fog. In the back of his mind he knows that he will shortly feel all the worse for ignoring his symptoms now, but he practically invented mental compartmentalisation. He’ll have to deal with everything else later.

“Here’s the thing,” Jack says, and for the first time Ianto feels threatened, as if the brutal side of Jack has been unleashed in a way that he hasn’t felt since Lisa went on a rampage through the Hub. “You know far too much about me. Knowing my name is one thing, maybe I end up famous throughout the galaxies and you’re an overzealous autograph hunter. But you look at me like you expect to see someone else and, as far as I can remember, I’ve never kissed you.”

Jack rocks back on his heels and stands, pacing furiously across the worn carpet that does nothing to stifle the heavy thud of his boots with every step he takes. “So what is it, Ianto? You come here, covered in Rift energy and looking like you’re 100 years out of fashion. The way I see things, you’re a Time Agent, and not a very good one at that.”

“It’s closer to 70 years,” Ianto says, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. He doesn’t know how much research Jack has put into the next several decades – possibly not too much if he thinks pinstripe suits will be in fashion in 100 years time – but the early 21st Century may just give too much of a hint as to where he has come from. 

Torchwood is a well kept secret, at least in theory (Cardiff’s residents being the main exception; if Jack will insist on flashing lights and inscriptions on the SUV, he’ll have to deal with the fall out) but many of the aliens Ianto has encountered have shown advanced knowledge of the organisation. If only because of Torchwood One’s penchant for blowing things up with startling regularity. Rumours of megalomaniacal behaviour usually manage to transcend time and space.

It would be nice, in a funny sort of way, to think that Torchwood may be known thousands of years into the future, to know that they mattered, that they made a difference. Still, he might be barking up the wrong tree entirely and he’s not going to risk tearing the universe apart for a moment of personal glory. Jack can’t know about his future.

“I don’t care what year you’re from, I care who you are and why you’re here.”

A blur begins to creep into the edges of Ianto’s vision once more, and he lists to one side as the staccato throb of pain behind his eyes sends his centre of gravity crashing to the ground. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Tired?”

The non sequitur throws Ianto, and he wonders how much of his exhaustion shows on his face. “Slightly.”

“And by slightly, you mean you’re about to keel over. I’ve met your type before.” Jack smiles insincerely and reaches out a hand to pull Ianto to his feet. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I can’t let you sleep for too long, so how about we play a game? Every time I wake you up, I get to ask a question about you.”

Ianto blinks vacantly and allows Jack to push him down onto the bed. “What do I get out of this game?”

“You don’t fall into a coma and die.”

“You’re not the most trusting of individuals, are you?”

Jack shrugs unconcernedly and lays a blanket over Ianto. “I thought I was the one asking the questions.”

“Fine,” Ianto says with more than a hint of irritation. He is concussed, not paralysed, and he doesn’t need anybody putting him to bed. “One question each time, I don’t reveal anything that could create a paradox, and you let me go back to sleep after I’ve answered.”

“Do you always drive such a hard bargain or am I just unlucky tonight?”

“Is that your first question?” There’s a slight smirk on Ianto’s face, on which probably wouldn’t have slipped through his emotional vetting process if he’d been thinking clearly. Still, he thinks, if Jack can play games then so can he.

“No. How about we start at the beginning: what is your name?” 

***

The Hub’s lights flicker and die as Tosh draws on all the extraneous power she can get her hands on and re-routes it to the mainframe.

“Oi! Turn the fucking lights back on!”

Jack barely notices the sudden darkness, doesn’t react to Owen’s litany of abuse regarding working conditions and the difficulty in conducting autopsies by torch light. It’s not that he wants his team to work under these conditions, although he does file the idea away in his head as a possible training exercise one day, but he told Tosh to use whatever means necessary to analyse the subtle time shifts of the Rift, and they’ll all just have to live with the side effects.

He appreciates the effort his team is putting into the search for Ianto, be it providing Rift scans, comfort or enough stimulants to ensure that sleep will be nothing but a distant memory for the foreseeable future, although he knows that they are all labouring under the misconception that retrieving Ianto is as easy as a flick of a switch. Only Jack knows better.

In short, he has no idea where Ianto is or how to get him back.

It’s nowhere near as simple as his team seem to think. The last time the Rift was opened, it caused unbridled chaos but it served its purpose. It brought Tosh and him back. Now all they have is a burnt out Rift Manipulator that bears all the signs of being the key to a surprise attack on Torchwood, and a mainframe that is suffering under the weigh of its search of space and time. 

“Headache? Dizziness? A burning desire to stab yourself with a screwdriver?”

Jack looks up, startled.

Owen leans against the doorframe, casually throwing and catching a spinning disc through the air. “See this?” he says, tossing the disc onto Jack’s desk. “It’s a copy of the CCTV in the basement. I’m not a neurosurgeon but six years of working my arse off at uni did teach me that people don’t normally pass out without good reason.”

“I was tired,” Jack says hoarsely. “It was nothing.”

“So tired that you decided to take a nap on the floor?” Owen scoffs in disbelief. “Pull the other one, Harkness. You’ve been acting weird ever since the Rift up and pinched Ianto from your clutches. What is it, a broken heart?”

There’s a distinct possibility that part of him is losing grip, being shaved away more and more the longer Ianto is missing but it’s not his heart. His sanity, maybe, but that’s not under Owen’s area of expertise. “No.”

“So you decided to fold under pressure, then?” Owen glares when Jack rises to his feet, angry and indignant.

“It’s none of your business.”

“Funny, I though you hired me as a doctor. If you’re going to start having turns then it’s entirely my business. For fuck’s sake, Jack, you’re acting as if you’re on another planet.”

“Since when have you been this observant?”

“I’m trained for these things.”

Jack lets out a disbelieving “oh?” and stares pointedly at Owen, daring him to continue the charade.

“Fine. Gwen sent me in here. Happy?” Owen turns and slouches out of the room, leaving Jack alone with his thoughts.

As much as it kills him to say it (although death doesn’t hold much currency nowadays) Jack knows Owen is right. He is acting – reacting, really – as if he is somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

***

Ianto wakes to the piercing wail of an ambulance winding its way through the streets. It is morning, as best he can tell, although the red haze of light that pierces the barrier of his closed eyelids is just as likely to be the midday sun.

All he can say for certain is that the sun has risen, and is casting a beam of light through the window and curtains to bathe him in warmth. This place, this time feels much nicer in the day, when there are no bombs raining down upon the streets and threatening to take his life before he returns home.

Or maybe it is the heat radiating from the body pressed up against his that he likes. He doesn’t know, doesn’t particularly care, and certainly isn’t going to question why he is sharing a bed with Jack. Whatever went on during the night – and there are a good five hours that seem lost to him forever – he must have satisfied suspicions and proved that he isn’t a Time Agent.

That, or Jack wanted to snuggle before the dawn execution. It scares Ianto when he thinks just how possible that is. He’s never known anybody to place so much importance on sex.

A pass of his hand through sleep-tousled hair and a rub of tired eyes work to pull Ianto out of his thoughts, and the pain in his head clears away the residual fuzziness and leaves only confused irritation. He stills completely, comes to the conclusion that he will be perfectly fine if he remains immobile, and gets up anyway. He has no time for whiling the day away in bed.

Jack shifts with the movement, rolling over to the centre of the bed and muttering something nonsensical, and Ianto pauses to watch him. There is nothing voyeuristic in his gaze, just plain curiosity and a desire to see the sharp edges softened by sleep. He wonders how long he has before facing the harshness of waking life once more.

There is no clock in the room, and Ianto doubts his watch displays anything near to the correct time. Jack, he knows, wears a watch on one wrist and his wrist computer on the other but he looks to be sleeping so peacefully that Ianto doesn’t have it within him to disturb the Captain.

It’s not something Ianto is used to, and he has to cast his mind back more than a year to find a moment like this. His Jack doesn’t sleep much at the best of times, without nightmares even less often, and despite interrogations and threats, Ianto can’t help but let the silence and stillness go on undisturbed.

Instead, he pads over to the small basin along one wall and wets his face. The water does nothing to relieve the pain in his head but it serves to clear away the last remnants of the cobwebs in his mind.

A blinking light atop the small table in the corner catches Ianto’s attention, an alien (he assumes) weapon (also an assumption) drawing his focus. He reaches for it, running a practised hand gently over the barrel of what he thinks is a gun. His archivist senses kick in as he turns the device over in his hands, mentally cataloguing the switches and the trigger. He wonders absently whether this is one of the alien gadgets locked away in Torchwood’s archives that only he and Jack have access to.

“I’d be careful with that if I were you, can’t have you vaporising yourself now that I’ve decided you’re harmless.”

Jack’s voice startles Ianto, the unexpected words sending his pulse racing from shock. There’s no hint in Jack’s voice to imply a slow drift out of sleep, no roughness or drowsiness that would accompany sudden wakefulness and he wonders whether the feigned sleep was yet another test.

Ianto closes his eyes and schools his expression to one of impassivity before turning around. If there’s one thing he hates, it’s people playing games with him. That, and the assumption that just because he wears a suit and keeps everything tidy, he is useless. 

“If you say so,” he says, and turns away, sagging down onto the bed. “You seem to think you know everything.”

“Let me guess, I hit a nerve.” Jack laughs, fucking laughs, and if Ianto was a violent man he’d already have bloodied knuckles and no remorse whatsoever.

“No more than you did when you accused me of being a Time Agent,” he says, and wonders what it will take to get Jack to shut up. Kissing him is out; while Ianto has developed a proven track record of its effectiveness, there is a time and a place for everything.

“What’s wrong with the Time Agency?”

“You tell me,” Ianto bites out, and smiles in satisfaction when Jack doesn’t answer.

“How much do you remember?” 

The question comes out of the blue, and after the tension Ianto finds that he welcomes the distraction. “You wanted to know my name, and after that, you asked where I came from. The rest is hazy.”

“Thanks to my little game, I know your name is Ianto Jones – you didn’t mention a middle name so I’m going to assume it’s something like Jasper – and your job description is something between archivist and teaboy. You’re also wearing blue underwear.”

Ianto’s eyes widen with shock, and there is nothing he can do to stem the flow of the blush that spreads rapidly across his cheeks. He has to admit he’s not surprised; affronted, yes, mortified, definitely, but there’s less shock than there should be. It’s a small mercy that he doesn’t remember being asked. If, indeed, he was asked at all. He wouldn’t put it past Jack to take a quick peek if he thought he could get away with it.

“Anything else?” There’s not much else he can ask, he doesn’t know what he revealed during the night and Jack looks far too pleased with himself to have learnt only the basics. Only his Jack would have recognised the hint of steely determination in his voice, the sharp tone that demands an answer.

It’s these strange little differences that remind Ianto that he’s with a stranger, and he’s not surprised when Jack smirks and shakes his head.

“Nah, nothing off the top of my head.”

Ianto frowns, and grooves of unease etch into his forehead as he bites down on his lip to keep from railing against the seemingly written in stone rule that says Jack must keep him in the dark over all things private.

“What’s Torchwood?” Jack cocks his head to the side and stares at Ianto with a penetrating look. It’s not the same cold, calculating gaze from the previous night – for which Ianto is eternally grateful – but it more than conveys a curiosity that will not be assuaged by mere platitudes.

“What?” 

“You muttered something about Torchwood in your sleep.”

“It’s nothing important. Don’t worry about it.” At least one of his questions has been answered, Torchwood isn’t known in the future, at least not to the Time Agency. It’s probably for the best, the more Ianto thinks about it. 

“So I shouldn’t worry that Torchwood is build over a Rift?”

Damn. What the hell did he say last night? Ianto squeezes his eyes shut and wills away the creeping unease. It doesn’t work, he hadn’t expected it to, but the small moment allows him to escape, to hide from the metaphorical roving lights which play a cruel game of search and destroy with his psyche.

“It shouldn’t make any difference to you.” 

Jack grins, amused. “It shouldn’t but it will, right? You’re not as mysterious as you think. So you have a Rift, and you’ve travelled through time. What was it, a jilted ex-lover trying to get rid of you?”

“No,” Ianto says, stifling a laugh. “No. Absolutely not.” It’s not funny, apart from the fact that it is, and he’s certain that he only think so because he’s been spending too much time in Jack’s company. “Things are never that trivial at Torchwood.” Usually. 

Jack sobers under the weight of the words and he moves to sit next to Ianto. “I can’t get you back unless I know how you got here.” 

Ianto sighs, and once again fingers the small sachet in the lining of his jacket. “What do you want to know?”

***

Jack slams his mug down on his desk, spilling the hot liquid over the sides. The thought of cleaning the mess flickers briefly through his mind but he discards the notion just as he discards the stack of soggy files rendered unreadable by dark stains. If Ianto had been there he would have offered Jack a withering stare and fetched a sponge. He’d salvage the dripping papers and withhold coffee until Jack promised to be more careful.

If Ianto was there, Jack wouldn’t have spilled his coffee in the first place. And that is the problem; Ianto can’t be found.

Well, Jack thinks with a grin that is touching on the maniacal, he might be creeping through the streets of 1941 London but best not tell anyone else.

Owen has already signed papers to declare that Jack has lost his mental capacities, only they need a second signature and Jack isn’t yet so crazy as to commit himself. He’s quickly developing an admiration for bureaucracy.

It isn’t as if he’s losing his ability to lead, to make decisions. He’s just not entirely on his game, and any excuse or explanation will do. If Owen wants to rant at him about sudden black outs and dependency issues then so be it. Whatever makes him feel better.

What surprises Jack is the cold hand of concern that wraps itself around his throat and squeezes until he struggles to take a breath. He feels odd and out of sorts when Ianto is away, always has if he’s honest with himself, and he can’t shake the creeping sensation of despondency.

There is nothing in the world that can help this feeling, short of having Ianto back. Especially when his waking dreams are slowly taking shape and playing across his mind’s eye in a continual loop that grows and stretches the longer Ianto is missing.

A cry from the main part of the Hub pulls Jack from his musings. The sound of footsteps, heels slamming against the metal gratings of the floor, reaches him, growing louder and closer as Tosh bursts into his office.

“I think you should see this,” she says urgently, all but dragging Jack to his feet and out the door. “Our records of the CCTV in that room are showing some discrepancies, like somebody set up a different camera feed and replaced our vision with what they wanted us to see. Only they didn’t overwrite the backup files on the mainframe so I was able to bring up the real recording. The Rift Manipulator has been in there for four or five months, we just didn’t know about it because the security cameras were showing an empty space.”

Jack lets himself be pulled along, inwardly wondering when Tosh developed the confidence to drag her boss along by the cuff of his shirt. He can’t say he’s disappointed in the new Tosh. “So whoever did this knew enough about Torchwood to infiltrate the Hub, but not enough to disable the whole security system.” 

He waits for Tosh’s nod. “How’d they get in, then?”

“The same as last time.”

“What?” Jack shakes his head, confused.

Tosh adjusts her monitor. “Look at this,” she says over the tapping of key strokes to magnify the image.

“Bilis,” Jack hisses as he clenches his hand into a fist and thumps Tosh’s desk angrily. “Find him.”

The last vestiges of calm flee under the weight of Jack’s fury and he has to retreat back to his office to keep from submitting to the overwhelming desire to punch somebody. Logic dictates that he should help in the search for Manger, and he is, if replaying the footage from Lisa’s room can be counted as helping, but he can’t distract himself from the probing, fearful thoughts that sweep through his mind and demand to know Bilis’ intentions.

He fears everything went to his enemy’s plan.

It isn’t that Jack can’t function without Ianto, he managed for decades before they met (although he’s come to expect a certain standard in coffee and Tosh clearly doesn’t measure up if her weak excuse for a hot drink is anything to go by) and it has always been inescapably clear that one day Jack will have to go on without his team, but not now. Not like this.

The strange sensation of drifting thoughts hits again, like his head suddenly houses two minds. These visions – hallucinations, he reminds himself – feel so real, so true to life that he swears what he sees is happening somewhere in time. Only he knows he never encountered Ianto during his time as a conman; a face like that is difficult to forget under any circumstances. 

Jack shakes his head, trying to clear the sense of displacement and upbraiding himself for even entertaining the notion that what he sees is real. The thought is ridiculous, Ianto’s disappearance doesn’t have anything to do with him, past or present. The fault lies solely at Bilis’ feet.

“Jack?” Gwen knocks on the door and enters without waiting. “I’ve been monitoring the police channel in case anything strange came up. We’ve got reports of disturbances at 14 Bute Arcade.” She takes a breath, releasing it almost instantly. “The Stitch in Time clock shop.”

“The bastard,” Jack breathes as he springs to his feet. “He’s toying with us.”

He grabs his coat and, with a glare that clearly warns Gwen not to follow, he runs out the door.

***

Jack’s insistence that they eat first surprises Ianto, not least because the Captain doesn’t strike him as the type to wait patiently when there is information to be had. Tins of fruit are made to suffice as a Spartan breakfast, their silence broken only by the harsh scraping of forks against tin. 

Jack watches Ianto eat, blatant and unrepentant in his gaze, and it takes all of Ianto’s self control to keep from entering into the mind game. He has no doubt as to what Jack is doing – cogitating, processing information, formulating theories before the truth is revealed – and he lets it run its course without complaint. If there is anybody in the world who could possibly come close to figuring everything out, it’s Jack. His (future) lover is many things, but dim-witted is not one of them.

Perhaps that is why Ianto finds himself unable to speak, tell Jack of the future. It’s not that he minds revealing parts of the timeline so much as it is the utter certainly that Jack will see beyond the basic facts and make connections that he shouldn’t see or know. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile.

That is what is at stake, and Ianto hates how it feels, the knowledge that he threatens to create a shatter point in time, one action that may fracture the rest of history. Still, he will not renege on his promise now, he always keeps his word and if telling Jack of the future can help him get home, he will take that chance.

And cling firmly to the knowledge that he can make Jack forget.

“Are we together in your time?”

The question seemingly comes out of nowhere and for once Ianto is glad that he gets to ease in with a topic that won’t break the universe into millions of pieces. He can do flirtation. He’s done it before, and he knows it will distract Jack.

“You’re my boss.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Ianto laughs at Jack’s response, shaking his head in fond exasperation. “Not exclusively.”

It isn’t exactly true, his eye certainly doesn’t wander, and probably wouldn’t even if he had the opportunity. He’s not sure what Jack does; they spend so much time together at work – and after work – that when they do get a rare day off, the team spend the time catching up on much needed rest. Maybe Jack goes out then, maybe he doesn’t. Ianto isn’t sure he wants to know either way.

“Good to hear.” A grin can be heard in Jack’s voice, infusing innocent words with unmistakable meaning. He tilts his head to one side, examining Ianto like a curious animal faced with something unknown. “Will you tell me what happened? Everything, not just the parts about us.”

“It’s...” Ianto pauses, considering his words. “It’s complicated. I don’t understand half of it myself. We, Torchwood I mean, have this enemy, I don’t know who or what he is but he had something to do with sending me here.” The sound of mocking laughter and the burst of pain as his head came into contact with the whirring Rift Manipulator will haunt him for longer than most things he's seen since he joined Torchwood.

Jack will not be satisfied with that answer; hell, Ianto isn’t satisfied with the imprecise information, but it buys him time to get his thoughts together and calm the nervous thud of his racing pulse. 

A frown from Jack is his first response, almost petulant in his displeasure. “And?”

Ianto sighs and leans forward to rest his chin in his hands. He can’t say for sure, but he’s fairly certain that Jack – his one – will kill him when (not if, it can’t be if) he discovers that Ianto has told Jack – the other one – about Torchwood and... Jack. 

The thought makes his head spin, the confusing tendrils of two times meeting and binding, and all he can do is shrug and pray that he finds a way of sorting it out.

“And, I don’t know much more than I’ve told you. One minute I was in Cardiff, the next minute I was here.”

“So your being here isn’t as random as it could be.” It isn’t a question, judging by the inflection in Jack’s tone. It is almost as if he senses something that Ianto can’t see or comprehend. It’s not surprising, the rules of time travel aren’t taught in most schools in Cardiff. “I can’t help you get back until I know what I’m dealing with.”

“Torchwood is an organisation devoted to... ostensibly we are supposed to keep track of all alien activity on Earth.”

“I get the idea there’s more to the job than keeping an eye on holiday makers.”

“Our real mandate is to capture a time traveller who had a run in with Queen Victoria, weird as that may sound.” It’s completely ridiculous; Ianto remembers the looks of scepticism that were habitually worn by new employees of Torchwood. Of course, that only lasted for as long as it took for the retrievals team to return with a new contagion or an alien that sent the building into lockdown for as long as it took to neutralise the threat. Still, Jack seems to accept the information with a startling lack of reaction, and for the first time Ianto gives thanks to the open mindedness of the 51st Century.

“Sounds like my kind of guy.” Jack grins in amusement and leans back on the bed, propping himself up with his elbows. 

Ianto gives a noncommittal hum, hoping that it is the time travelling part that appeals to Jack and not the run-ins with queens, although discovering one way or the other isn’t high on his to-do list. When it comes to Jack, it pays to keep an open mind. And open legs, for that matter.

“So let me get this straight. You work for a place that has alien tech, a Rift and orders to apprehend time travellers.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m your boss.”

“Yes.”

“How did I manage to con my way into that?” There’s a slight waver in Jack’s voice, a subtle rising in pitch, and Ianto can’t help but smile at the genuine bemusement on the Captain’s face.

“I’d rather not hazard a guess.” Knowing Jack as he does, Ianto probably doesn’t have to go far to speculate over employment methods. He’s been guilty of the same, and that both terrifies and comforts him. There are very few constants in his changing world, but Jack flirting with anything with a pulse and his own penchant – sometimes accidental, mostly intentional – for emulating his Captain’s actions rank near the top.

Ianto’s brow furrows as he considers the circumstances. Temporal physics and Rift manipulation are a bit beyond his areas of expertise, but he’s fairly certain that Jack shouldn’t be so relaxed about knowing his personal future. “You’re fine with this?”

“Sure, especially if you’re going to end up under me.” It’s Jack, therefore he didn’t accidentally leave out a word. “Do you think future me would mind if–”

“What I meant was, aren’t you worried about creating a paradox? Causality and all that.”

Jack pauses, considers, shakes his head as if to clear it. His features contort as he ruminates, a look of concern passing across his face and worrying Ianto the longer he waits for an answer.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? What kind of Time Agent are you?”

“A bad one, obviously. Why else would I be running a scam to cheat them out of great piles of cash?”

Brilliant, Ianto thinks, rolling his eyes moodily and wondering whether he’d have had more luck if he’d been stuck with John Hart. 

***

The clock shop appears empty as Jack pushes his way past a crowd of shoppers and bangs on the closed door. A ‘to let’ sign hangs in the window but an array of clocks remain on the walls, and he swears he can see shadowy movement inside.

Jack opens the door – trust the bastard to mess with him by leaving it unlocked – and storms into the back room.

“Back again, I see.”

“You,” Jack snarls, and he lunges forward only to grasp at thin air.

He ignores the temptation to spin around when he hears a shrill laugh behind him and feels a warm breath of air at the back of his neck. He turns slowly, cautiously, even as the flame of anger sweeps through his body and begs him to strike. “What have you done with Ianto?”

“Done?” Bilis repeats in his cold, high voice. “I haven’t done anything. Perhaps the child did something to himself.”

“Like hell he did. It was you, we saw you building that machine. What else are you hiding in the depths of Cardiff?”

Manger glides across the room to take a seat behind a tidy, wooden desk. “Do sit down.”

Jack sits, deliberately slouching despite the tremors of anger coursing through his veins. “I mean it, I want to know what you did or –”

“– or what?” Bilis raises an elegant eyebrow and steeples his fingers as he rests his elbows on the desk. “I hardly think you are in any position to be threatening me. I hold the key to getting your lover back. He is your lover, is he not?”

“What he is to me is none of your business.” Jack struggles to keep his voice low and level, battles to stop himself from reaching for his gun. “Where is he?”

“Don’t you know?” says Bilis with affected surprise. “I must have underestimated Torchwood’s intelligence. Do you mean to say you haven’t found him yet? That is poor form, Captain Harkness.”

“Where is he?” Jack’s words are slow and perfectly enunciated, his tone nothing less than chilling.

“He is where the Rift chose to take him.”

Jack slams his fist down onto the table and, with a quick, striking movement, grabs Manger by the lapels. He doesn’t know whether he wants to shoot Bilis, torture him or strangle him with his own cravat. “Ok,” he whispers, his face inches away from Manger’s. “Ok. Let’s start at the beginning. How did you build a Rift Manipulator in my basement without my knowledge?”

“You were away,” Bilis says simply. “You left and your team were sent to the Himalayas; such a pity about their little holiday, I don’t imagine death by suffocation in a snowslide would be very pleasant. Still, it must be preferable to being held captive for a year, wouldn’t you agree? Once they were out of the way, I had all the time in the world to build whatever I wanted.”

Confusion wraps itself around Jack and squeezes, almost sending him to his knees in worry. “That year never happened, we reversed it, we stopped the paradox. Your Rift Manipulator shouldn’t exist.”

Bilis laughs coldly. “Ignorant child, do you really believe the rules of time bind me? I can come and go as I please, just as I can maintain my own piece of the paradox.”

“Fine,” Jack says, pushing aside the persistent flashes of memory through his mind that tell him that any remnants of the year that wasn’t are wrong. “That’s how you did it, what about why?”

“You killed my Master.”

“He would have killed all of Cardiff.”

“That was his right!”

For the first time, Bilis loses his cruel calm enough that Jack can see anger and loathing in his eyes. It’s strangely comforting to discover that there is reason behind this madness.

“So this is your revenge.” Jack releases his grip on Manger and sits down. “Why Ianto and not me?” He fears he already knows the answer.

“Why punish the guilty when the innocent suffer so beautifully?”

Jack stands and makes for the door. He has heard enough, there is nothing more he can say or do here that will help him get Ianto back.

“Leaving so soon?” Bilis follows Jack out into the main part of the shop and begins to wind a clock standing in the corner. “I’d have though you would want to know more.”

“Actually, there is one more thing.” Jack turns and shoots Bilis between the eyes.

***

There is a fine line between recklessness and courage, and Ianto thinks he may very well have shattered it. He’s had some spectacularly bad ideas in his time, and he’s seen the fate of the world stand upon a knife’s edge, but this is more than Torchwood and invasions and Cybermen. This is time, space and the entire universe.

The solution is simple enough, he’s got enough retcon on him to erase months, even years if he is careful with his prompts and suggestions. It’s not as simple as forcing a pill down Jack’s throat, there has to be limits to the time to be forgotten, false suggestions and barriers implanted in the subconscious. He can do that, and he’s quite good at it, but it’s different in this instance.

This is Jack.

A different Jack, certainly, and one who doesn’t inspire the same blind loyalty in him that his Captain does, but it’s still Jack. Time and place aren’t important, long ago he vowed never to betray Jack (again, says his cruel inner voice) and he’ll keep that promise if it kills him. 

Retcon may not be a betrayal, but he’s familiar with the disorientating effects of Torchwood’s amnesia pills. It’s a scant step away from violation, at least in Ianto’s mind, and it’s made all the worse by the uncertainty of lost memories.

“What will you do now?”

“Now, what?”

“Now that you know about Torchwood.” Now that Jack has no reason to keep him around anymore. Mystery and intrigue are good in the short term but once discovered they have an uncanny knack for making things worse.

“I thought I’d find out a bit more about you.”

“No.”

“No?” Jack raises a surprised eyebrow.

“You don’t need to know anything else.”

“Just how desperate are you to get home?”

“Is that a threat?” Ianto asks sharply, his voice laced with steel. He stares at Jack for a long moment, eyes hardened in challenge, before smiling insincerely and looking away. Their power play isn’t important in the grand scheme of things.

“Should it be?”

“Is this a game to you?” There’s a faint trace of frustration in Ianto’s voice, and he wonders how much of it shows through. Despite all appearances, he’s not angry at Jack. If anything he’s angry at himself for telling Jack about Torchwood. Even if it does help him get home, it goes against all of his instincts.

Jack shrugs before nodding once, a smirk playing across his face. “I guess so; there’s this game where everything you say has to be in the form of a question. I think we’re doing well at it.”

“You just lost.”

“So I did,” Jack says, and laughs. 

Ianto shakes his head, unable to keep up with the sudden changes of mood. He’s still feeling off balance, justifiably so all things considered, and the constant jumps from subject to emotion to action make his head spin. He wants to go home.

The thought of retcon still grates against his conscience but he will have to accept it. If given the choice between creating a paradox – or whatever happens when future meets past – and feeling guilt over stealing a few days worth of memories, he knows which he would choose. Another few ounces of guilt regarding the retcon will be nothing in comparison to some of his past deeds.

He has no choice. He doesn’t have to like it.

***

Sometimes Jack wonders how he manages to be so effortlessly oblivious to the things surrounding him. Suzie’s obsession, Lisa running rampage, Bilis building a fucking Rift manipulator in his basement: all if it destructive and all of it preventable. Infiltration and attack simply aren’t things he expects when he wakes up in the morning. 

He used to. He used to sleep with one eye open and one finger wrapped around the trigger of his blaster. Maybe he’s going soft in his old age, maybe he simply feels safe here. It doesn’t matter, really. What matters is finding a way to get Ianto back.

It isn’t even as if Jack can fix a mistake or rescue an act of rebellion from the hands of chaos. No, every single part of this sorry turn of events was planned with a deft touch and there is nothing he can do until he solves the puzzle of his waking dreams.

If Ianto is in 1941 London, and he’s becoming more certain of that the longer the minutes and hours tick by, then it is a matter of calculating a formula for their own Rift Manipulator and opening the gateway for Ianto to get home. It’s feasible, if not easy.

Jack taps his earpiece and waits for the beep that tells him he has connected. “Tosh, have a look at our CCTV records on the night you rebuilt the Rift Manipulator, see if you can trace Ianto’s movements. I want his piece found. Get Gwen and Owen to pull up scans of the Rift from early 1941, see if there’s anything in the readings.”

“What should I look for?” Tosh sounds confused, and rightly so. Rift scans had been few and far between in the decades before Jack had assumed command of Torchwood Three and nobody had been able to properly harness the technology available to them. Still, Tosh doesn’t question the motivation behind his orders, and for that he is thankful.

“I’ll tell you when you find it,” Jack says, and switches his comm off.

He’s doubtful that they will find anything useful in the records – even if Ianto is in 1941, it mustn’t have happened in his own past or he’d remember it. This is not a history that they are bound to uphold, a cycle that must be started and completed, this has to be something new. He only hopes that Ianto doesn’t inadvertently change anything in the past.

***

Ianto paces the room nervously, a feeling of uselessness weighing at him as he halts, turns and retraces his path back to the window. He is alone, has been for most of the day, and for the first time since he woke up in 1941 he feels a creeping sense of despondency.

It’s faintly surprising that Jack is honouring his commitment to his squadron, and trusts Ianto enough to leave him alone. Well, he thinks with a frown, it surprises him that this Jack knows of duty. Maintaining a front or not, it’s not something he would expect from the Captain. Hell, even his Jack up and left at the first sign of the TARDIS.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t know whether Jack will help him get home now that all questions have been answered. It’s not that the Captain is unreliable, at least not when it comes to matters of importance, but distractions seem par for the course when Jack is involved.

They haven’t struck upon a solution, have barely considered the problem. Despite all good intentions – and Ianto genuinely believes Jack’s intentions are – their minds don’t click, meld together to form a complete consciousness in the way Ianto is used to. Torchwood’s team may not be the best of friends but when faced with a crisis they become functioning parts of one whole. That is what is lacking between him and Jack, and it’s not something they can rectify without months of close interaction.

Still, he thinks with a smile that borders on the insane, at least this Jack doesn’t ignore the filing. Not that there’s any filing to be done here, but that’s irrelevant. If he gets home he’ll definitely take the matter up with his Jack.

A thought stops him and wipes the amusement off his face. He’s starting to think in terms of if and not when he returns to his time, and there is nothing he can do to change the workings of his subconscious mind.

Ianto considers the thought for a moment, debating inwardly whether he could learn to survive over half a century into his past, and discards the idea with a stubborn shake of his head. No, he does not belong here.

He’s got Jack to keep him company, and he supposes that is better than a kick in the teeth, but it isn’t enough. This Jack, pre-Torchwood, immortality and the Doctor, isn’t the same as the Jack he is used to, the one he knows better than most. It is a matter of age and experience, Ianto decides thoughtfully. Age, experience, and an understanding of what it is to be alone.

These characteristics don’t seem to feature in this Jack’s personality, and it shows through in every word and action. Not that Jack wouldn’t be at least slightly familiar with the feeling of loneliness – being thousands of years out of time has to hurt, even if he doesn’t show it – but it’s not the same.

He is every bit as charming and attractive as the Jack in Ianto’s time; more so in some respects, he smiles more freely and with less lurking sadness behind tired eyes. He doesn’t have cause to think of betrayal when he looks at Ianto, nor does he feel the unmistakeable pull of long term desire. 

It’s a feeling Ianto knows all too well, and this is why he can’t stay. He tries to heal his Jack, and earn healing in return until one day they will be fine and free from memories. It isn’t love, or if it is it’s not a 21st century love, but it is comfort. Sometimes that is all they need.

A knock at the door cuts through Ianto’s musings and sets him on edge. It can’t be Jack, Ianto can tell by the knock (the Captain would never be so mundane as to knock a simple three raps – not to mention he has a key) which means that it is either their landlord or one of Jack’s… acquaintances. At this moment in time, Ianto isn’t sure which would be worse.

He can’t pay the landlord – he has plenty of money in his pockets but it all features a monarch whose coronation won’t take place for over a decade – and the less said about the other people Jack socialises with the better.

Ianto holds his breath, careful not to make a sound in hope that the person will leave. He waits until he thinks he hears footsteps fading into the distance before dropping to his knees and peering through the crack under the door. Nothing.

He climbs to his feet and makes a show of brushing nonexistent dust from the knees of his trousers in an attempt to stave off the growing embarrassment he feels at having resorted to so childish a measure. Even if nobody is there to see him, it makes him feel better.

The situation strikes Ianto as amusing all of a sudden and before he realises what is happening, he’s doubled over on the floor laughing and crying in equal measure.

This is how Jack finds him when he returns home.

***

The cog door rolls aside to reveal a jumble of papers and folders lining the floor of the Hub. Jack’s brow knits together in confusion as he picks his way towards his office, taking care not to disturb the precarious piles of discarded reports that sway and slide with every step he takes.

Jack glances at the monitors at the workstations as he passes by; one shows a mathematical formula that only makes the most basic sense to him, the other plays looped footage of the security camera in Lisa’s room. He blinks once, shakes his head, and moves closer, ignoring the sound of papers tumbling and scattering across the floor.

“We’ve got a problem.”

Jack doesn’t spare a thought as to where Owen has appeared from, doesn’t take his eyes off the scene being played out on the screen in front of him. “So I see.”

“One minute it was there and then it wasn’t.”

Jack hums in agreement and turns around. “It must have disappeared when Bilis died.”

“He’s dead?” Owen cocks his head to the side and studies Jack carefully. “Guess the bastard deserved it,” he says finally, and switches off the monitor.

Jack just shrugs, grateful that Owen saw the hazards in questioning him and chose not to fan the flames of contempt. They might not always see eye to eye, but they’re surprisingly similar when it comes to missing lost lovers.

A mournful whine drifts down from above, followed by the clatter of shoes against steel rungs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Gwen says as she jumps down from the ladder, “all she does is sit in her nest.”

Pining for Ianto is Jack’s diagnosis, and he feels strangely relieved that he is not the only one to be affected. Not that the emotional response of a pterodactyl is generally used as a measure of similarity, but he feels a closeness to Myfanwy that he has never felt before. She depends on Ianto as much as he does.

“What happened with Bilis?” Gwen follows Jack as he enters his office and drags a chair over to sit opposite him. “Did you get anything out of him?”

“Let’s see,” Jack drawls, leaning back and wishing his team wouldn’t take it as a personal affront if he installed a lock on his door. “He said he built a Rift Manipulator while I was away, never mind that it should have been destroyed when –” He stops himself and closes his tired eyes. “It shouldn’t have existed.”

“Did he say why he did it?”

“Revenge, what else?” Jack laughs bitterly. “And then I shot him.”

He raises a hand to forestall Gwen’s gasp of disapproval and shakes his head. “Whatever you’ve got to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Fine,” Gwen says, and that only annoys Jack more. As much as he doesn’t feel like explaining himself, he can deal with the shock and outrage. It’s Gwen’s pity that gets to him, makes him feel resentful and alone. He doesn’t need his team tiptoeing around him.

Since the last incident involving the Rift, he had resolved to keep a close eye on his team and an even closer eye on Owen. He’d assumed wrongly, so wrongly, that he would have to deal with an accident or even another act of desperation. Never revenge. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Gwen pats Jack’s hand and rises from her seat. “I’ll get back to helping Tosh go through the records.”

A noncommittal grunt is Jack’s only reply, his mind already far away in miles and time.

“How about a cup of coffee?”

“No.” That’s the thing about Gwen, Jack thinks. She’s got more humanity than the rest of them put together but she doesn’t realise that her innocent words of comfort sometimes do more harm than good. Still, in terms of smuggling aliens in the Hub or trying to kill him, she's one-up on the rest of the team.

“No thank you,” he repeats softly. “I think Tosh will appreciate your help.”

It’s a thinly veiled attempt to get Gwen to leave, and he’s grateful when she takes it as such, nodding and slipping quietly out the door. Jack thinks, or at least hopes, that she understands why he wants to be alone.

He closes his eyes, inhaling and releasing the breath with a force that pushes the clouded past out of his consciousness and leaves him in the here and now. He may be almost certain that his visions are real, playing out just as he sees them in the theatre of his mind, but living in the past will not help him.

If nothing else, he can console himself that Ianto isn’t in any danger. He is with... Jack, and he should be safe enough in the hands of his past self. Ianto may have to fend off a series of unwanted advances, because if there’s one thing Jack Harkness trusts in, it’s the seductive power of Ianto’s suits. If he likes them then his past self will and if his head hadn’t already been fogged by confusion, it would be now.

It is almost simple in its complexity.

Fact: Ianto is (very possibly) with his past self in 1941.

Fact: He knows what is happening because he can see, almost feel, every moment and every interaction as they happen.

Fact: He doesn’t understand the situation but it won’t stop him from getting Ianto back.

***

“Ianto?” Jack’s hands grip at Ianto’s shoulders tightly, more forcefully than he’d probably intended, and shake him with nervous concern.

Tears stain Ianto’s cheeks and a tremor runs through his body as he blinks owlishly up at Jack. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word, but the look in his eyes more than conveys the confusion he feels. It isn’t that he is homesick – although he is – nor is it the breaking wave of shock. He’s already been through that, and coupled with concussion to boot. If that’s not the mark of a desperate overachiever, he doesn’t know what is.

It is the feeling of relief that gets to him, makes him wonder whether it was meeting Jack which has changed his perspective of the world and his place in it. He doesn’t know, doesn’t even care beyond idle curiosity but he has changed so much since transferring to Cardiff that he can’t tell where experience ends and Jack’s influence begins. There’s overlap, surely.

He is far into the past with no knowledge as to how to get back, and the thing that worried him most was having the wrong money. It is a sobering thought, the realisation that time travel has stopped being the stuff of imagination and become reality.

“You ok?”

Ianto blinks and focuses on Jack. “Fine.” The disbelieving look he receives is almost comical, and it threatens to send Ianto over the edge and into hysterics once more.

Jack raises an eyebrow at the composed look on Ianto’s face and holds out a hand to pull the other man to his feet. “You don’t look fine.”

“It was an aberration.” Ianto shrugs, his face impassive as he fights and suppresses the thread of insanity that winds through his veins. 

“Really,” Jack says, studying Ianto closely through narrowed eyes. “Are you going to tell me why you were on the floor staring at the ceiling like it held the answer to the universe?”

“I wasn’t.” He keeps the façade of impassivity firmly in place, and if he tries, Ianto can almost make himself believe he’s telling the truth. It’s pathetically obvious that he isn’t, if his words aren’t a dead give away then the tense bunch of his shoulders and gritted teeth must throw out warning signs, but Jack isn’t the most observant of people and his stoic front has been in constant, well practised use. Maybe he will get away with this.

“Sure looked like it from where I’m standing.”

Ianto sighs softly, more for something to do, a distraction from the conversation than a display of displeasure. He is used to Jack’s curiosity, the way he delves into matters with part care and part worry, with just a hint of mistrust. His Jack doesn’t like secrets, although he has more than his fair share of them himself, and he likes betrayal even less. 

That is why Ianto is never allowed to have an off day, a bad mood, without enduring a round of twenty questions. Except Jack also cares enough to try to right whatever is wrong. He may not allow secrets but he isn’t a monster.

This Jack, however, perplexes Ianto. He trusts him well enough, but that is not the issue. “Why?”

“Why what?” Jack’s face contorts with confusion.

“Why do you care?”

“You intrigue me. I can’t say I don’t find you attractive, because I do. Big time. But you strike me as somebody my future self would like kept in one piece and I do self-serving like no one else.”

Ianto shifts uncomfortably, fiddling with a loose thread handing from the thin blanket on the bed as he contemplates how to respond. That wasn’t a pick-up line, as best he can tell; dancing around the subject of sex would never cross Jack’s mind. 

It doesn’t surprise Ianto in the slightest to discover that this Jack knows a thing or two about selfishness, nor is he overcome by shock at the revelation that he is intriguing. It’s the desire of Jack, both of them, to protect him that annoys him.

He’s a victim of circumstance, not a casualty of weakness. He exhales deeply, and snaps the blanket’s loose thread with a decisive pull.

“I was trying to decide when all of this became normal to me. Not waking up to find myself in a war zone, I could have done without that, but everything else. Time travel, aliens, you.”

“Me?” Jack laughs and wraps a comforting hand around Ianto’s. “Did you just call me normal?”

Ianto lets out an embarrassed chuckle and looks down, blushing slightly. ”My mistake.” He leans his head to the side, resting it against Jack’s shoulder. It is more forward than he usually is – more forward than he should be – but there is no one there to see and Jack makes no complaint.

It’s almost surreal, the way Jack reacts, pulling Ianto closer and lowering his head to rest against Ianto’s in a strangely intimate gesture that seems uncharacteristic for the both of them. He doesn’t know what to expect from this unusual state of affairs and neither, he suspects, does Jack but it doesn’t matter. Not really.

“I think I know how you feel,” Jack says, his words being muffled by the pillow of Ianto’s hair. “You see something that changes you, something so out of this world that it changes the way other people see you, and every moment after that is spent wondering when it happened.”

Ianto pulls away, looks Jack in the eye, grips his hand tightly. “What did you see?”

“I don’t remember.”

***

A distinct feeling of jealousy settles deep within Jack as he forces himself to remain calm, to keep from reacting to the invisible taunt. The emotion agitates him, turns his stomach, and lingers like a brutally sour taste in his mouth. The visions get stronger with every moment Ianto spends in the past, so much so that Jack can almost feel the warm weight of Ianto’s hand in his own.

It is seeing Ianto begin to succumb to effortless charm and charisma that angers Jack. He recognises the slight hitch in Ianto’s breath when he is touched, the way he keeps his eyes focussed on nothing but the man in front of him. This isn’t a dream from which he can wake up and forget, this is real and it doesn’t matter to Jack that he is resentful of himself.

He is certain that it never happened to him when he was in London, and he doesn’t appreciate having a head full of memories that aren’t his own.

Jack leans against the railing that lines the Hub’s upper level and kicks the lowers rung, enjoying the low, reverberating sound that echoes through the cavernous room. It should be him picking Ianto off the floor and calming him. He is the one who knows Ianto, knows how to care for him, wants to keep him safe. It’s the same for all his team, but he’s had more time and opportunity to look after Ianto.

It’s not something Jack can put into words, this strange need to keep his team from harm, but he feels it down deep inside where only his most base instincts lie. His past self spoke true words when he said Ianto was somebody to be kept safe, to be guarded, although a small part of Jack questions the sincerity of the statement.

He wasn’t a very nice person before he met the Doctor, and if he’d thought acting the role of protector would get Ianto into his bed, he would have played the part to award winning standard.

It’s something the Doctor changed in him.

The Doctor would be useful right now, but short of faking an alien invasion or tearing open the Rift to point the TARDIS in the right direction, he’s got no way of contacting the elusive Time Lord.

“Jack?” Owen’s voice carries through the Hub and up into the higher levels, summoning Torchwood’s leader down to the autopsy bay.

Stairs are taken two at a time, the last few skipped entirely as heavy soled boots spring and land, thumping against the cement floor. Jack grabs Owen’s monitor and swivels it towards himself. “What’ve you got for me?”

The screen is split into four quadrants, each showing the faintly blurry features of a satellite map and a blinking dot at the centre of each. “Tosh ran a scan of the local area, something like a 20km radius, for remnants of Rift energy.”

Jack nods in approval. “And?”

“We’ve got a shitload of results. Most were just the residue from the whole Abaddon thing.” A frown creases Owen's face as he speaks, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. “But there were a few that had stronger readings.”

“You think they’re the pieces of the Rift Manipulator.”

Owen points to the top right quadrant of the screen. “This is where I hid my piece. I’d bet my life, or whatever I’ve got left, that these are the others.”

Jack squints at the screen, mentally translating the aerial view of the location into a visual of the street. “You hid yours in a brothel?”

“Behind a brothel, thanks. And don’t even think about telling the others or I’ll tell Ianto you can recognise all of Cardiff’s finer establishments from their roofs.”

Jack rolls his eyes as he bites down on all manner of comments that slip into his head. He might not care who knows about his sex life but he has a feeling Ianto would never forgive him if he gave Owen any more ammunition to wield against their relationship.

“Good work,” he says, the irritation softening into gratefulness. He waves a hand at the remaining locations. “Ask the others if the scans show their places. I figure if we know three out of four there’s a good chance Ianto’s piece is showing up as well.”

“Want me to retrieve the pieces?” Owen asks as he moves towards the stairs.

“Nah,” Jack says thoughtfully. “Send Gwen. I need you and Tosh to help with tuning the manipulator.” After all, Owen has the most experience with opening the Rift. Jack can only hope that it comes with less chaos and death this time.

 

***

Ianto doesn’t know when day gave way to night, or how long he and Jack have been sitting in silence. The room is dark to his tired eyes, but the precise time eludes him as he looks out the window to the street below. The air raids will be starting soon. 

“Tell me something,” Jack says suddenly, in a familiar, curious tone that Ianto has never been able to refuse. “What do you think of me as a boss?”

The question surprises Ianto. He had braced himself for a ridiculous enquiry about sex, or something equally inane, and having to answer so simple a query throws him off guard. There is no straightforward answer, at least not when it’s Jack asking the question. There is much that the Captain doesn’t – can’t – know about Torchwood and its leader and, if Ianto wants to get home, that is how things must remain.

It has been a long time since Ianto thought about himself and Jack in purely boss and employee terms and he can’t seem to separate what he knows about Jack’s personal life from his boss persona. Gut feeling tells him that Jack’s immortality has made him a better boss but a less likeable person. There is no hesitation in him, no failure to live by the encompassing bigger picture. It is only something that comes with age, and while it can be an asset when it comes to saving the world, it makes personal relationships hellishly complicated.

Not that Ianto would reveal this to Jack – either of them – in a hurry. Or ever, for that matter.

“You’re fine,” he says finally, inwardly cringing at the perfunctory reply. “A bit unconventional, a little overwhelming but I’ve no complaints.” For the moment, at least. 

Jack nods, obviously pleased with the answer. Whether it was what he had been expecting, Ianto doesn’t know, but it obviously didn’t offend him. “And as a lover?”

“Like I said before, it’s complicated.”

A disbelieving look is Jack’s first reaction to Ianto’s words. “How complicated? You’re either having sex or you’re not.”

Ianto smiles ruefully. “Things are never that simple. You’re different to my Jack, there’s less history. It’s more confusing in my time, we’ve run the gauntlet of betrayal and resentment and forgiveness.”

“Betrayal?”

“There was an incident with my girlfriend.” That’s putting it lightly but it works as well as any other description. “Things got messy and you... Jack didn’t help matters. It doesn’t matter now.”

Jack stares at Ianto for a long moment, silent and unblinking. It’s almost as if he can’t reconcile everything he has just been told with the profile he’d already built up in his head, and Ianto can’t blame him. He feels the same way.

It’s either that, or Jack wants to know what Ianto was doing with a girlfriend. Times like these, it’s better not to ask which it is.

“Why all the questions?” Anyone who knows Ianto would pick up on the barely concealed aggravation that lies beneath the forced calm of his words. Except Jack doesn’t know him, can’t recognise the inherent quirks, and maybe that’s for the best. Ianto has never been very good at talking about relationships.

“Just curious.” 

“Like how you were only curious when you insisted on interrogating me.”

Jack shrugs. “These things happen. And if you think that was an interrogation, you’re more sheltered than I thought. You can’t blame me for asking questions when somebody like you drops into my lap.” He leers slightly and rests a warm hand on Ianto’s thigh.

Ianto releases a shaky breath and closes his eyes as the warmth of Jack’s hand ignites a flame within him that refuses to extinguish no matter how hard he rails against it. The feeling tries to rob him of his defences, building an unbreakable wall between sense and desire.

He likes Jack. He wants Jack. He shouldn’t, but reason and sensibility bear no weight in the face of passion. It isn’t even infidelity, not really, and he has made no promises to deny temptation. Jack has always been the only person capable of tempting Ianto, except he never expected to encounter another Jack.

The darkness behind closed eyes offers none of the answers he seeks, nor does the ceiling or the carpet below their feet. The only question Ianto knows the answer to is how bizarre the situation is – very. 

He shifts slightly – closer to Jack, further away, he doesn’t know – and places his hand over Jack’s. He isn’t sure whether he is trying to move the hand from his leg or keep it there and none of his warring feelings seem to be able to win the internal battle.

Ianto blinks once as his thoughts come to an abrupt halt. He pushes Jack’s hand away, ignoring the flash of disappointment that passes across the Captain’s face, and leans over to forestall Jack’s sigh with a kiss.

It seems only natural to bring a hand up to curl around the base of Jack’s neck, comb through the short hairs that brush against a stiff collar, feel the beat of a pulse beneath his fingertips. Ianto’s eyes lock onto Jack’s as a heady sensation of desire sweeps through him, and he shivers when Jack returns his gesture, wrapping an arm around his back to pull their bodies closer together.

There is nothing familiar in their kiss, nothing to suggest that Ianto is more than experienced at kissing one Captain Jack Harkness. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the spark of passion, coaxed to burning flame by hands and lips and warm breaths. There isn’t a part of Ianto that doesn’t feel the full force of Jack’s ministrations; the ghosting sweep of fingertips across his chest, the gentle graze of teeth against the sensitive skin of his neck, the insistent grasp on his wrists which encourages him to do his own exploring.

Jack pushes and Ianto lets him, falling back to lie on the bed and pulling Jack down to rest against him. The bunch of his shirt between them irritates Ianto and sets him twisting and writhing under the warm press of Jack’s body. Fingers work quickly to relive him of the constricting clothing, unbuttoning the shirt with practised hands and the hint of teasing strokes.

Ianto trails a single fingertip down Jack’s spine and smiles a little at the moan and arching stretch he is met with. He slides a hand between them and presses a palm against the warm, hard bulge in Jack’s trousers, this time chancing a brief laugh at the second, louder moan. He doesn’t move, instead forcing Jack to thrust forward in search of release, and if there is a hint of a smirk on his face at his audacity, it disappears when he feels a reciprocal hand brush against his cock in a single, teasing movement.

Fingers – and skilled ones at that – work at Ianto’s belt and trousers and free him from the tight restraint, wrapping around his cock before his trousers even hit the floor. 

“Fuck,” Ianto whispers, barely registering the knowing smirk Jack directs at him, and knowing instinctively that Jack will not let the moment pass by without a leering quip.

“That’s what I had in mind,” Jack says, and blinks curiously when Ianto stifles a chuckle against the side of his neck.

“I had no idea,” Ianto manages, gasping and laughing in equal measures. “I thought we were about to watch the cricket.”

“Cheeky.” Jack pulls back and stares at Ianto, a delighted grin playing on his face. “I like that in a person. I wonder if you’d still be so coherent if I did this.” His last few words are drawled slowly, each word accompanied by a short, sharp stroke of his fingers.

Ianto’s legs spread, almost of their own volition, as Jack trails a single finger down the underside of his cock, tracing the vein and following further to stroke at his entrance. He is vaguely aware that he is panting, gasping for breath, his mouth open and his eyes closed in a picture of debauchery. Ianto doesn’t care how he looks, and neither, he suspects, does Jack, who is slowly removing his own clothes and leaving his wrist computer as the only thing he is wearing. Ianto knows all too well from past experience that the brush of worn leather against his cock when Jack pumps him is more than enough to tip him over the edge.

A single, lube-coated finger is worked into him as Jack kneels between Ianto’s legs and leans down to ghost a warm breath over the tip of his cock. A flick of Jack’s tongue laps up the seeping pre-come, and Ianto can’t hold back a cry as he simultaneously tries to thrust up into Jack’s mouth and press back against the finger breaching him.

“Like that?” Jack asks, and adds another digit, stretching Ianto and sending him past the slight discomfort and straight to pleasure.

“Now, please,” he gasps, too far gone to worry about forming full sentences, fixating instead on the play of fingers across the spot that makes him howl and buck with piercing pleasure.

Jack smiles down at him, a true smile instead of his usual leer, and it surprises Ianto how familiar the look is, how often he sees it on his Jack’s face. It makes him wonder whether sex is the only time he truly sees the real Captain Jack Harkness.

Jack guides Ianto’s legs to wrap around his waist, and presses in slowly, uttering a curse as he is surrounded by a tight heat.

A hiss of pleasure as Jack slides in fully is Ianto’s response to the questioning look above him, and he tightens the grip of his legs, trying to draw Jack closer and deeper as the Captain rests a beat, propping himself up with his hands resting either side of Ianto.

He can’t put his finger on it, but there is something different about sex with this Jack. It is hunger, Ianto thinks, a primal desire for pleasure that drives Jack’s thrusts. There is nothing wrong with such passion, and Ianto has certainly experienced moments of it himself, but it still surprises him. Jack is the consummate lover – probably always has been – and nobody can deny his particular talents, but the frenzied pace at which Jack thrusts into him reveals more to Ianto than all their previous conversations. 

Maybe this is how Jack communicates, through sex rather than words, but there is one thing Ianto knows for certain. Somewhere along the line, before he finds himself in the twenty-first century, Jack will learn that it is the journey, and not the arrival the matters.

Ianto is used to a more slow and languid lovemaking, the type of sex between lovers instead of two people who are thrown together by chance. Not that he and Jack – his one – aren’t daring, and he’s fairly certain that the only reason they haven’t had a moment of swinging from the chandeliers is because they don’t have one, but there’s an underlying affecting that is missing with this Jack.

A particularly hard thrust from Jack, angled and timed just right, brings Ianto’s mind back to focus on the intense rush of pleasure that sweeps through his veins. He arches off the bed, pressing closer to the body above his as the wave of completion finds its crest deep inside and spills over him with a sudden rush of warmth.

***

Jack lets out a low moan as he strokes himself, sliding a warm palm along the length of his cock in tandem with the thrusts he can see, feel his past self make. If he closes his eyes and lets his minds drift closer to his carefully erected mental barrier between the fierce certainty of the present and the hazy, almost unreal memories of the past, he can almost believe that he is there with Ianto.

The pounding of his pulse quickens as he breathes short, sharp breaths that send his mind swirling and spinning in a tempest that is just to the left of reality. His hand tightens, trying to emulate the warm heat that he can sense but not touch, desire but not possess, and he moans again, hearing a faint echo of Ianto’s cry in his unsuspecting ears.

Jack comes with a sudden thrust of his hips, spilling onto his hand and panting harshly as he struggles to regain both breath and sense. He’s never felt something as intense as the rush from the tangible pictures inside his head.

The rush of orgasm is shorted lived, fading back into nothingness as a sense of bitterness surges to the forefront. It’s not jealousy, he doesn’t feel resentment when it comes to sex, but it surprises him how much he cares that Ianto is with another man. 

He can’t blame Ianto for falling prey to a perfectly masterminded seduction (on the contrary, Ianto had taken far more effort than usual) and he knows full well that he would – and did, apparently – do the same if faced with the same scenario. Except there’s a strange feeling of antipathy, or something like it, inside him and it’s eating away at his long standing defences. 

Maybe that’s the way things go, a constant in their uncertain lives: he flirts, Ianto flirts back, they end up in bed. 

Jack wonders, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, whether Ianto is just as bad for him as he knows he is for his lover. Still, they can sort that out – or not, knowing their relationship MO – when Ianto gets back. 

All he can do now is to wait, and watch the minutes and hours tick by in the empty Hub. His team are at home – or should be – catching up on much deserved sleep but he doesn’t have that luxury. They’ve done all they can, parts retrieved and programmes written to calculate Ianto’s re-entry to the present, an alarm set to summon everybody back to the Hub once the equation is complete.

It takes a long time to compose an entire Rift formula, Jack knows this better than most, but his trial in patience is preferable to opening the Rift without the proper coordinates. It has been seven hours already, and he has a feeling he will see that time double before he sees a resolution. Especially since he’s about to complicate things.

Jack reaches for his phone, and hits Tosh’s number on his speed dial. He hates to wake her from her long desired sleep, and he knows he’ll owe her more than he can currently repay, but he hopes she’ll indulge him and attribute his madness to exhaustion and loneliness.

“Tosh? I need you to alter the variables in the Rift formula.”

***

A sudden chill pulls Ianto from his slumber. His muttered complaint goes unanswered as he stretches out an arm to feel for his lost blanket and finds only the bite of the cold morning air. He tucks his arm against his body and rubs it to regain the lost warmth as his mind slowly ticks over from a dazed half-sleep to a state of wakefulness. He remains still.

Eyes dart left and right, taking in his surroundings and searching for his still elusive blanket, but steadfastly ignoring the naked back filling his line of sight. He doesn’t need a reminder of the previous night.

“Sorry.” Jack turns and lies down, pulling the blanket back over them. “I’m not used to waking up beside anyone.”

Ianto blinks to refocus his eyes on the face that lies mere inches away from his own and nods once, accepting the apology and the reason behind it. It doesn’t come as a surprise, when he thinks about it, that Jack doesn’t usually partake in the horrors of morning-after awkwardness and wouldn’t be used to sharing a bed with somebody all through the night.

This quirk of Jack’s personality is added to Ianto’s growing mental list of things he knows about the Captain, his brain processing the evidence with practised ease. This is more than just his job, this is instinct. Compare and contrast, check and re-check, know your subject. Only his subject is really two studies merged into a maelstrom of past and present. He has no real idea as to what drives Captain Jack Harkness, what makes him tick, all he can do is scratch the surface of the surprising depths and pray that he doesn’t lose himself in the process.

A small smile passes across Ianto’s face, the first cheer he has felt since the feelings of guilt and shame began to weigh on him as he drifted to sleep the previous night. He can’t explain it, doesn’t know how or why, but somehow his racing mind has managed to reconcile itself with the obstinate part of himself that resists change. Something in his thought processes, the way he profiled Jack, perhaps, catalyses a reaction that neatly fits all the missing pieces into their places. He still doesn’t know Jack but he doesn’t need to. His guilt dissipates under the weight of the knowledge that Jack uses sex for comfort, a form of reassurance, and puts no clear preference upon the choice of partner.

“Do you–”

A sudden burst of noise cuts Ianto off, a high pitched whistling that increases in intensity every time it begins a new cycle of sound. Both men wince as the shrill noise fills the room, giving no sign of stopping and no indication of how to stop it.

“What is that?” Ianto seizes the blankets and pulls them up over his head, trying to block out the piercing sound. “Can’t you turn it off?”

Jack burrows into the blankets with Ianto and buries his head under a pillow. “Not really,” he says, his voice muffled by the defensive layers. “It’s just an alarm, it’ll stop soon. I think.”

“That’s comforting, thank you. “ He blinks as a flashing light sweeps through the room, a green tinted accompaniment to the shrieking whistle. “I never realised alarms of the future were programmed to maim the senses. Seems to defeat the purpose of warning a person.”

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t set it off.” Jack reaches blindly for his wrist strap; his head still buried under the pillow, and presses a series of buttons. The noise stops. “There. Happy now?”

Ianto doesn’t know for sure, but he suspects that something on Jack’s table of tech is responsible for the rather insistent warning alarm. Apparently Time Agents are equally well trained in auditory torture as well as time travel. “Ecstatic. Won’t somebody have heard that?”

He sits up warily and eyes the room with trepidation. Curious neighbours are the last thing they need at the moment. Especially when neither of them is dressed.

"Nah. I'm shocked that you think I'd be so indiscreet," Jack says, and Ianto follows the line of his gaze over to the pile of gadgets in the corner. To his eyes, it's nothing more than an array of blinking lights and softly buzzing machines but something on the table seems to please Jack.

“My mistake,” Ianto says with a sarcastic curl of his lips. “I momentarily forgot that your concept of discretion involves at least remembering to close the curtains.”

An offended huff is Jack’s only reply.

“Still, I must admit your scandalised look is quite believable.” Ianto smirks and leans away when Jack tries to bump him with his shoulder.

Jack laughs in obvious delight. “I’ll have you know, Mr. Jones, that I am perfectly capable of being scandalised.”

Ianto raises an eyebrow. “You’ll have to forgive me if I have difficulty in believing that.”

“You know me too well.”

Ianto doesn’t answer. A large part of him wants to believe that Jack’s off the cuff comment is truth, wants to seize upon the meaning behind the words and search for any trace of sincerity in the Captain’s voice. Only, when it comes to this, he does know Jack. Not very well and not even enough to allow himself to believe that this might change one day, but he knows enough to be aware that flirtation is just one form of distraction in an arsenal of obfuscation. This is one area where there is no divergence between Jack, past and present.

“It was the Rift Monitor,” Jack says as he fiddles with his wrist strap again, pressing various buttons with a seemingly careless abandon that makes Ianto’s face contort with concern. He reminds himself that Jack knows what he is doing – more so than a Torchwood archivist would, at any rate – but he can’t quite stop the familiar itch in his fingers, the desire to analyse and document and prevent things from exploding.

He chews his lip thoughtfully. “We’ve never had any reports of a Rift in London.”

Jack studies the alarm more closely, looks at the strange graphics lighting up from his vortex manipulator. “There isn’t one, these reading are from...” He presses another button and hums in surprise. “Latitude 51° 28′ 41″ North, Longitude 3° 10′ 38” West. The exact place you came from.”

A sudden rush of air filling his lungs tells Ianto that he has taken a deep breath, although all other conscious thought has fled in the face of the news. He stutters a few syllables, trying to express the myriad of raw emotions filling him but the concept of eloquence escapes him utterly.

“I think we can get you home,” Jack says and laughs at the incredulous look on Ianto’s face. “From the looks of this, some sort of manipulator has opened the Rift in your time and it’ll work at tracing its way here. It should take a while, these things have to go slowly or the barriers of time will fracture. Somebody out there must really like you to risk opening the Rift twice in a few days.”

A half-formed smile touches Ianto’s lips. “Sometimes I think so.”

The siren starts up again, shrieking a warning that neither man can ignore. It’s almost a wail, far worse than the screech of a pterodactyl or a keen of a weevil, Ianto thinks as he watches Jack dash over to the table of futuristic tech and fiddle with something small and disc-shaped. The sound stops immediately, and Ianto offers up a small prayer of thanks to anybody who cares to listen.

“What did you do?”

“I had a silencer set to cover the boundaries of this room and sound proof anything inside. All I did was reset the settings to suppress all noise within about an arm’s length of the alarm. So don’t get too close or you’ll enter the field. And don’t say anything you don’t want the neighbours hearing.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if the Time Agency, or whoever built your equipment, was to make an alarm that’s less deafening? And easier to turn off, for that matter.”

“What do you want, a cloister bell?” Jack says with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “That’d sure instil a desperate sense of panic and alarm.”

Ianto shrugs. “People ignore car alarms all the time. Perhaps if they weren’t so skewed towards promoting unmitigated worry we might take more notice of them.”

A frown creases Jack’s face and Ianto wonders whether he’s making any sense at all. Possibly not, he’s not exactly an expert on the human condition. At least not when it comes to the so called ‘normal’ humans, the people who work standard nine-to-five jobs and spend Saturday nights at the local pub. Torchwood employees, on the other hand, are almost an open book to him.

“So, your theory is that people ignore alarms because it’s easier not to know when something goes wrong.”

“That, and humans are essentially proud creatures, deep down we see things as fire alarms as crises that we could have discovered on our own. It’s like something yelling at us, I don’t think anybody takes kindly to that.”

Jack lets out a deep breath. “I won’t argue, this is getting way too philosophical for so early in the morning. But tell me something, why would you ignore an alarm when it could save a life?”

A strange look passes across Ianto’s face, a sort of pained grimace that gouges lines of worry and heart ache into his forehead and draws a curtain of sadness across his eyes. “We were arrogant. Warnings don’t mean a thing when compared with the quest for knowledge.”

Ianto shakes his head and turns away. As self-centred as the Captain is, there’s no way Jack could have missed the distress on his face, the anguish in his voice. All he can do is hope the Jack is astute enough to know when a subject is off limits.

“You said you don’t like being yelled at; do I ever yell at you or am I one of those perfect bosses who makes work an absolute pleasure?”

Ianto doesn’t miss Jack’s stress of the word pleasure and he laughs suddenly, his strange mood evaporating quickly. He hates the power his memories of Canary Wharf still wield over him, and his response mechanism that makes him act like a passive/aggressive fool, but he knows there is no use dwelling on the past or explaining things to Jack.

“Your silence is making me nervous.” The Captain grins widely and rests a hand on Ianto’s thigh. “Don’t tell me one day I’ll turn into a boring old bureaucrat who can’t take a joke.”

A standard one-liner about harassment springs quickly to Ianto’s mind, although he’s not sure whether it’s related to his boss’ flirtations or Jack’s hand on his leg. “Boring isn’t a word that could describe you now or in the future.” 

Especially when Jack’s – his one – concept of casual Friday didn’t require any clothes at all. “I... I think I’ve deserved it all the times Jack has yelled at me.”

In reality he’d deserved far worse than the heated, harsh words he had received but Jack had been kind and Ianto thanks the universe every day that he isn’t bound to a bed in a psychiatric hospital with no memories of his adult life. Or worse, frozen in a drawer in Torchwood’s morgue.

“Really?”

He smiles sadly. “Let’s just say I got off lightly.”

“What happened?”

Ianto shakes his head and looks away. “It’s a long story. You’ll find out eventually, at any rate.”

“What can I say, I’m impatient. And none of this is making me any less curious about you.” Jack leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and cups his chin in his hand as he peers at Ianto curiously. “For all I know, you might be a secret agent sent to thwart my cunning plans.”

Ianto smirks slightly and tries to cast aside his painful thoughts. “You’re on to me. Of course this means I’ll now have to kill you.”

Jack laughs uproariously and if Ianto can’t quite bring himself to join in, at least the hurt of his memories of Lisa's – the Cyberwoman, he corrects himself – rampage through the Hub and Jack’s anger has faded to a dull ache that he can mostly ignore.

***

“Are you ready?” Owen leans against the doorframe to Jack’s office and chucks a piece of paper folded into an aeroplane through the air.

Is he ready? Jack hopes so. “What’s this?” he says, plucking the plane from its flight path and unfolding the paper carefully. If there’s one thing he has learnt in recent years, even if his resolve ebbs and flows and occasionally disappears altogether, it’s proper respect for their files. Apparently all of Ianto’s memos have rubbed off on him, if not Owen.

“Some sort of maths formula, something to do with the Rift. Ask Tosh, she’s the one who told me to give it to you.” Owen shrugs and turns to leave.

“Owen.” 

Something in Jack’s voice causes Torchwood’s doctor to stop and turn around. “Yeah?”

“If we don’t get back, you’re in charge.” Gwen is technically second in command, at least in practice if not on paper but Jack refuses to let her become more involved in Torchwood than she already is. She deserves to have a life outside the job, and leading Torchwood Three isn’t conducive to that.

“Can I have that in writing?”

“Do you think you need it?”

Owen smirks. “Nah, I just want to be able to tell Ianto when he gets back that I outrank him.”

Jack laughs at this and waves a hand to dismiss Owen. “Send Tosh in, will you?”

“I’m not your secretary,” Owen calls over his shoulder but Tosh enters the office soon after and Jack can only thank his lucky stars that his team found a way of working together while he was gone. They survived without him once, they can do it again if need be.

“Owen said you’ve finished the Rift formula,” he says, gesturing for Tosh to sit down and blinking in surprise at her confirming nod. “That was quick.”

“I tested it briefly, just to see if the manipulator would connect. Everything looks like it’s in working order but try not to take too long; I can keep the connection open for half an hour at most. Do you think you’ll be able to find Ianto in that time?”

If what Jack is seeing is true, and he’s never been more certain about anything in his life, then Ianto already knows the Rift is about to open and Jack has just enough faith in his past self to get them to the right time and place. 

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he says reassuringly. He’s far from certain, but not quite lying through his teeth and Tosh probably knows so, but it allows them to ignore the worry and concern for a time. In their world, hope is often all they have.

A strange thought strikes at Jack, and he holds back an insane laugh that threatens to destroy his fragile calm. If worst comes to worst, and he and Ianto get trapped in 1941, they can always stow away on the TARDIS when it passes through wartime London. It might not take them directly back to 2008, and the Doctor doesn’t take kindly to people encroaching on his territory – be it ship or companion – but anything would be better than seeing Ianto grow old before his time.

“May as well get this party started.” He stands and makes his way to the centre of the Hub, Tosh following close behind.

***

“We should get going, from the looks of these readings we’ve got about an hour until the portal becomes active. You’ll be home in no time.”

Ianto just nods and stares out the window, his eyes seeing something very removed from the quiet London street outside. Home. It feels like he has been away for far longer than three days. He smiles slightly, turns around. “Guess this is it then.”

“Yeah.” Jack reaches for his coat, which has spent the night crumpled on the floor, and says nothing when Ianto retrieves it and passes a smoothing hand over wrinkled wool.

“Sorry,” Ianto whispers, embarrassed, as he hands over the coat with something akin to a blush. “Habit.”

Jack raises a curious eyebrow. “Is that the habit of handing me my coat or picking it up off my bedroom floor?”

“Both,” Ianto says as he fusses over Jack’s collar, “and you know it.”

Something in Jack’s eyes causes Ianto to freeze on the spot, his hands wrapped around woollen lapels and his body mere inches away from the furnace of heat emanating from beneath the heavy coat. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Jack shakes his head. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about anything other than getting home,” he says, running a hand through Ianto’s hair.

One of Ianto’s hands flies up to catch Jack’s wrapping around his wrist and gripping it tightly. “Jack.”

In the back of his mind, he knows that he shouldn’t demand answers from somebody he has just met but the mystery and the intrigue is so much like his Jack that he can’t help it. “Jack,” he repeats, this time without the stern, steely tone, and releases the hand in his.

Jack shrugs. “I guess I’ve never really had anybody to look after me before. It’s nice.”

“Nice.” It’s not quite a question, not exactly a statement. Ianto doesn’t know what it is, what he is supposed to think, just as he doesn’t know what Jack means by nice.

Pleasant? Cute? Pathetic? Quaint? He considers what it says about him, that he’s psychoanalysing gratitude for actions he performs every day, movements that are ingrained in his muscle memory and as integral to his life as an appreciation for good coffee and well-cut suits. Ianto likes taking care of Jack, likes the feeling of satisfaction in doing so, likes to feel needed. It shouldn’t matter what nice implies.

One day, he thinks with a wry smile, one day he’ll tie Jack down and make him talk, explain all the confusing little asides he makes and be perfectly honest for once in his long life.

“Nice, different, whatever.” Jack waves a casual hand of dismissal, seemingly unaware of any internal confusion in Ianto. “You ready?”

“Just about.” Ianto casts his eyes over the messy floor and retrieves his jacket from under the bed. Out of all the questions he has, how his jacket got there is one he really doesn’t want answered.

A final glance over his shoulder is Ianto’s farewell to the small room that has been his home for the past few days. He can’t say that he’ll miss the bed-sit, or the war around him, or 1941 in general, but it is with a twinge of sadness that he passes through the doorway and hears the thud of the door closing behind him.

“C’mon, it’s this way.” Jack starts down the street and Ianto follows, uncertain of there they are headed. He remembers waking up in darkness, the feeling of narrow walls closing in on him, but the rest has been lost to concussion and bewilderment. It’s entirely excusable but it still exasperates him that even now he has to depend on Jack to get home.

It rankles even further that his thoughts are entirely an attack from within, the ruthlessly efficient side of him that expects vigilance combining with his overly independent nature to dampen his feeling of happiness at returning home.

Bloody hell, he thinks, inwardly berating himself and then berating himself again for doing so in the first place. Christ, but his subconscious has some seriously masochistic issues.

“Why do I get the idea that no matter how much time I spend with you, now or in the future, I’ll never figure you out?”

Jack’s words cut through Ianto’s thoughts, leaving a gaping hole of surprise in their wake. “I could say the same about you,” Ianto says, with a faint laugh. 

“Of course,” Jack says blithely. “I’m the ultimate enigma.” He strikes what Ianto thinks is supposed to be a mysterious pose. “It’s all part of my charm. Whereas you are–”

“–the teaboy,” Ianto cuts in blandly. 

“I was going to say you’re much too cute to pull off the devastatingly handsome but tragically flawed act, but you can be the teaboy if you want. I prefer coffee, but we can work around that.”

Ianto just shakes his head, and keeps walking. He wraps his jacket more tightly around him and hugs his arms to his chest as they pass through the softly lit streets. Lamps brighten their faces with sporadic beams, the dimmest of lights guiding their way on the hazardous journey, as they slide silently through the shadows, two men out of time and out of conversation.

Ianto releases a deep breath and watches the warm air turn to mist and dissipate into the cold night. He slows gradually, coming to a halt and ignoring the infuriated part of his mind that tells him to come to his senses. “I’ve been thinking,” he says, then falls silent.

Jack makes a small, inquisitive hum and steps closer to Ianto. “You don’t want to keep anyone waiting,” he says when Ianto shows no sign of continuing.

“And by anyone, you mean you, I take it.” Ianto’s brow furrows. “Well, future you.”

“Am I that impatient?”

The answer isn’t clear or simple, and Ianto doesn’t know how to reply. Jack waited decades, centuries for the Doctor but he still feels the need to crowd around the coffee machine when he thinks his morning coffee is taking too long. Ianto shrugs, bemused. “Yes.”

“Can’t blame me, I’d want you back if I lost you.”

Ianto rolls his eyes and steps away from Jack, whose hand is creeping rapidly down his back. “Do these lines ever work on anyone?”

Jack laughs. “Worked on you, didn’t they?”

Ianto hums a noncommittal response and looks away. He licks his bottom lip, suddenly uneasy and determined not to show it. 

“If you were–” He breaks off and frowns pensively. “I’ve been comparing you with my Jack – God knows why, I’ve only been confusing myself – and there’s something I don’t get. You said you weren’t a good Time Agent, and you made a show of not being able to use your equipment. Yet you found me the first time and you know exactly where and when the Rift is going to open now. Why the act?”

“Doesn’t your Jack keep secrets?”

“All the time. Just not like this.”

Jack grabs Ianto’s arm and pulls him into a shadowy alcove in the quite street, pressing him against a wall. The cold touch of bricks and cement against Ianto’s back momentarily surprises him, and he struggles against the body barricading his own.

“Let me have my secrets,” Jack breathes against Ianto’s lips, unmoved by the edgy thrashing that seeks to push him away. “I’m not hurting anybody.”

Ianto aims a quick jab of his elbow at Jack’s sternum and spins the other man around when he gasps for breath, pinning him against the wall. “People always get hurt by lies.” He lets out a deep breath, releases Jack, takes a few steps away. “Do you really think that living under a charade of ineptitude is any way to live?”

“Something tells me you know a thing or two about living a lie.” Jack follows Ianto, holding him back before they reach the street again. “If you can lie, so can I. I’m all about equality.”

“I learnt my lesson,” Ianto says shortly, pulling away and wishing that Jack would respect the concept of personal space. If that is one of the tenets of human interaction that gets lost in the coming centuries, he has no desire to see the future.

Jack shrugs, unfazed by the apparent rejection and waves an uncaring hand through the air. “And I will too. You said it yourself; the Jack you know doesn’t cruise through life lying his head off. Odds are, something’ll happen and I’ll have to start taking responsibility for my actions but until then I’m not going to drop my act. You wouldn’t believe how much money it makes me.”

Something, Ianto thinks, or someone. It’s strange to see Jack as he was before the Doctor, before his immortality, before he chose to defend Earth. Still, he can’t – and won’t – change until Ianto is long gone.

He slips a hand into the inner pocket of his suit and fingers the hidden retcon tablets. “Do you want to get a drink?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you didn’t want to leave.”

“What?”

“First thing I learned at the Time Agency, always be in the right place at the right time. You, on the other hand, are several blocks from where you need to be and now you’ve asked me out on a date.” Jack winks, the flirtation plain on his face. “Can’t bear to leave me, huh?”

Ianto rolls his eyes. “Hardly.”

“Then why stall the inevitable?”

What can he say? He can hardly tell Jack that he is going to drug him but he can’t simply slip him a retcon and demand he swallow either. There are procedures to be followed and he knows the ramifications of a bad retcon job. One wrong prompt, an overzealous dose, and Jack may forget who he is entirely.

He shrugs sheepishly. “What if my being here has affected the future? I don’t want to go back and discover that I accidentally did something here that means I’ll end up being your slave.” That is an actual slave, captive and in chains, rather than the coffee bearing servant he sometimes feels like.

Jack laughs, long and loud and somewhat lecherously, and Ianto knows for certain that the Captain is picturing him in chains. Bastard, Ianto thinks with a hint of a fond smile.

“Would I, future me I mean, bother to go to the trouble of getting you back if you were only a slave?”

“Knowing you, yes,” Ianto says dryly.

Jack hums in agreement. “You’re probably right; you’re far too gorgeous to forget about.”

Ianto doubts being gorgeous is reason enough for Jack to open the Rift (and, at any rate, he doesn’t think he is gorgeous to begin with) but he lets it pass. It’s easier than having to explain his complicated relationship with Jack. “And here I was thinking you liked me for my personality,” he says with a roll of sardonic eyes. “I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from the disappointment.”

Jack laughs again, genuinely amused. “If it helps, the personality is a bonus.”

“Thanks, that makes me feel so much better.” Ianto smiles fondly and tugs at the sleeve of Jack’s coat. “Come on, if I’m to be a slave I may as well be punctual about it.”

There’s not a lot he can do about Jack’s memories now, his only hope is to come clean about the retcon and hope that the Captain sees sense. Which, on the whole, is bordering on the impossible. He wouldn’t want somebody messing with his memories either.

Maybe Jack is right, maybe everything will be fine when he gets home and he hasn’t changed anything. Maybe Jack has always known this would happen, had recognised Ianto’s face when he’d applied to work at Torchwood Three and hired his unknowing one-time lover for more than coffee and the promise of flirtation.

Ianto can imagine Jack remembering, and staying silent, but he can’t bear to think of his boss, his lover, knowing what was to happen and doing nothing to stop it. Maybe none of it matters; maybe everything has gone to hell.

He’s glad he’s never put too much stock in maybes.

Ianto looks at Jack expectantly. “I was waiting for a remark about calling you ‘Master’. I have to admit I’m slightly disappointed you let that one pass.”

Jack shrugs unconcernedly. “Can’t be flirtatious all the time.”

“Oh?” Ianto raises an eyebrow. “Have I caught you on an off day?”

“Please,” Jack scoffs, affecting a wounded look. “It was an off five minutes at best.”

“Of course.” Ianto shakes his head, a fond look on his face. “I should have known.”

They walk on in silence, sliding quickly through the deserted streets and ignoring the lights and sounds of the battle above them. The closer they get to the small alley where Ianto had appeared, the more carnage he notices; burnt out buildings, deep craters in the asphalt roads, the distant sounds of ambulances roaring through smouldering streets.

The closer Ianto gets to going home, the more he starts to wonder how he will get there. Torchwood’s Rift Manipulator is in pieces, or had been the last time he’d checked, and there is no way Jack would ever allow the team to use the enemy machine in the basement. If there is one thing that Jack is good at, it’s making sacrifices for the good of the planet.

He doesn’t know the purpose behind Bilis' invasion, or how he managed to slip past all of Torchwood’s security measures to build a Rift Manipulator – if that’s what the strange contraption was – in their basement, and he knows full well how hard it is to infiltrate the Hub’s lower levels without getting caught.

“How–” Ianto stops, clears his throat. “How do you think this portal will work? I’m not going to be beamed home in millions of pieces, am I?”

Jack lets out an amused chuckle and shakes his head. “Nah, it’s strictly a one piece job. It’s simple, actually. Without, you know, being simple at all.”

“Thank you,” Ianto says sarcastically. “That’s comforting to hear.”

“Ok, imagine we’re in a house and 1941 is the bedroom and 2008 is the bathroom and each door is a portal to and from another time. All you have to do is figure out which door you want to open, and walk through it.”

“I’m somewhat offended that you referred to 2008 as a bathroom.”

“Would you prefer en suite?”

“I’d prefer 2008 to be the bedroom.” Ianto hides a smile as he speaks, watching Jack splutter to defend his explanation. Sometimes the Captain can be so dim.

“You can’t–” Jack cuts off and halts suddenly. He looks around, grabs Ianto’s arm and pulls him away from the main street. “We’re here.”

“Oh,” Ianto says, and instantly berates himself for slackening his guard. He knows better than to become distracted; he should have realised that they were close. “I guess this is it then.”

Jack nods and presses a button on his wrist strap. “We’ve got a bit over eight minutes to spare.”

“Oh,” Ianto says again, wondering whether he has lost the ability to form full sentences. He fiddles with the retcon tablet in his pocket, inwardly questioning whether he has the nerve to take Jack’s memories. “You...”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Ianto shakes his head and ignores the twinge of unease that tells him that Jack can’t be allowed to remember. He’ll sort things out when he gets home.

He taps a steady beat against his leg, fingers drumming in time with the ticks of his watch. Ianto doesn’t know what time it is, and never really adjusted to the hours – and years – he lost in falling through time, but he can count the coming minutes.

It’s closer to five minutes when the ticking of his watch fades, the sound carried away by a gust of wind that rolls through the alley and breaks upon them like waves at the shore.

Ianto straightens his tie, pulls at his shirtsleeves, and steps closer to Jack. He kisses him softly, leaning in to wrap a hand around the back of the Captain’s neck and pulling him in so that they are pressed together, chest to chest, hip to hip.

“I’ll miss you.” Ianto’s voice is soft, coloured with a hint of sadness, and it takes all of his self-control to refrain from retconning the both of them there and then.

“Don’t,” Jack says soothingly. “You’ll see me – older me – the minute you get home.”

“It’s not the same. You’re different to him.” Ianto shakes his head slowly, thoughtfully, as he studies the brickwork of the alley’s walls. His Jack, Torchwood’s Jack, has Ianto’s faith and loyalty but this Jack, this confusing, convoluted, screw-up of a conman has his own merits. Quicker to smile, and to laugh. Less likely to brood over an unending life. 

Jack shrugs and nods his head once. “I figured that; you kept looking at me like you were comparing the two of us. And as much as I like to think I’m irresistible, you’ve fallen for him, not me. And maybe one day I’ll fall for you."

Ianto’s head snaps around to look at Jack so quickly that he knows he’ll feel the effects of whiplash later. “Jack doesn’t fall in love.” At least not when it comes to the 21st century concept of love. “And I’m not in love with him.” 

Is he? He can’t say for certain and he doesn’t care to hazard a guess. It’s far better to ignore these things, believe he is somewhere between a part-time shag and a long-term lover, than it is to love Jack. They go on the odd date, they have sex, and he accepts that he comes second to an alien with the whole of space and time at his fingertips. It works, and Ianto is happy with that. Mostly.

“My mother told me once that I’d learn how to fall in love when I knew what responsibility was. I’d say being in charge of catching aliens for the Royal family counts as a responsibility.”

Ianto stifles a laugh at the mental images that play across his mind; Jack holding a butterfly net and presenting Prince William with his very own pet Dalek is more than enough to shake him free from his musings. “Maybe,” he says around the strangled chuckle that escapes his lips. “I’ll have to see it to believe it.”

“Do you think you know me better than I do?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“Then start thinking.” 

It’s not a demand, more a pointed request, but Ianto shakes his head and crosses his arms in subconscious defence. “I can’t.”

“Please.”

Ianto is silent for a moment, considering his answer and confusing himself with every discarded thought. “I think I have a better understanding of how you’ll be in the future than you do. Whether that counts for anything at the moment, I don’t know.”

“I think it does.” Jack’s eyes crinkle into a smile, a genuine emotion, as best Ianto can tell. It’s impossible to know most of the time. “You definitely know more than you’ve let on.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Ianto says with a laugh. “You’ll have to forgive me for withholding important information. It’s the whole concept of tearing a hole in the space/time continuum that’s holding me back.” He looks away, a fond smile playing at his lips, and shrugs slightly. “I thought you future people would want to keep things constant.”

Jack bursts into delighted laughter, doubling over and gasping for breath. “We future people?”

Ianto shrugs again. “Sorry.”

“Nah, it doesn’t matter,” Jack says, “it’s not really that different. Some of us future people aren’t too hung up on relationships, I’m not big on categories myself, but things like monogamy do exist. It’s not that we can’t be monogamous, we just don’t see the point.”

“What if I see the point?”

“Then I’d say you could have anything you want.” Jack leers jokingly as he darts forward to kiss Ianto firmly.

It’s a quick kiss, no doubt one of Jack’s excruciatingly common I like you types of kisses, and Ianto finds himself holding back a laugh as he pulls away. “Does that line ever work?”

“Always,” Jack says with an accompanying wink. “And if you weren’t leaving in less than a minute I’d prove it.”

“What a pity.” Ianto rolls his eyes, not even bothering to hide his amusement. If it really is down to a matter of seconds, he’d rather bid Jack a fond, and even flirty, farewell than be overtaken by the notion of what is proper. It’s something that happens more and more when he’s around Jack.

A faint breeze sweeps through the alley, uncommon and uncomfortable on the cold, still night. Loose sheets of old newspaper scatter and are carried up into the hazardous sky by the strange gust of air that grows stronger and spreads out further from the narrow alley’s end. Ianto turns his face away from the forming gale.

A soft light, shimmering, hypnotising, intriguing, appears in the periphery of his vision, growing and expanding to fill his face with brightness. He takes a step back, shielding his eyes from the shining cloud of light.

It is bewitching, breathtaking, but Ianto has little faith in the splendour of flashy light shows. He’s seen such a display before, on a rooftop in Cardiff, and he knows what he sees is his way home. For that reason, and that reason alone, the sight is wonderful.

Ianto turns when he feels Jack’s hand wrap around his upper arm. He’d been vaguely aware of the Captain moving closer to stand behind him, like an ever watchful guard, as he’d crept towards the portal, but the firm pressure on his arm grounds him, pulls him back.

“Wait,” Jack murmurs in Ianto’s ear, “it’s not open yet.”

The centre of the shimmering light pulsates and contracts to little more than a small sphere before expanding with a sudden burst that shatters all the lampposts in the surrounding streets. It pulses once more and splits in two, a gateway opening and closing in the time it takes for a second hand to tick over.

“Jack?” Ianto doesn’t need to ask, he knows beyond all doubt what – who – the Rift brought with it but he want, needs, to hear the answer.

“Ianto.” Jack offers a hand and Ianto takes it, grasping and holding on with quavering pressure.

It strikes him as odd, that they react differently each time they are reunited. A kiss, a date, a handshake, there is no right or wrong greeting between them, only degrees of demonstrativeness. Then again, they hadn’t really been separated this time.

Ianto breaks their grip for a moment and reaches for Jack’s other hand, lacing their fingers together and pulling his lover closer. He smiles to himself – never let it be said that he doesn’t know how to be affectionate – and leans forward to kiss Jack.

“Um,” Jack – other Jack – says, and clears his throat. “Not to interrupt, I haven’t seen a show this good since the Lindirin orgies of 5088, but you’re going to have to get out of here soon.”

Jack – Torchwood’s Jack, and Ianto really needs to find a way to differentiate between them – breaks the kiss and releases Ianto’s hand, taking a step towards Harkness (that’ll have to do, Ianto thinks). “Can’t yet, there’s some unfinished business I have to take care of.”

“Get on with it then,” Harkness says sharply as he paces a few steps down the alley and peers out into the dimly lit street. “Sooner or later somebody’s going to notice the Rift light and think it’s a fire. I plan to be far away when that happens.”

“Running away?” Ianto raises a disapproving eyebrow. “You fit in better than I do.” 

Two Captain Jack Harknesses might raise a few eyebrows, and three men lurking in a deserted alley may take a bit more explaining, especially since two of the men are Captain Jack Harkness.

“First rule of time travel, remember? Don’t draw attention to yourself.” Harkness shrugs, unrepentant. “I’ve got... investments that I can’t jeopardise.”

“Actually, the first rule of time travel is don’t create a paradox,” Jack says tightly, shoving his hands in his pockets and nudging a stray chunk of brick with the toe of his boot.

Children. They’re both children. Ianto shakes his head, wondering why he puts up with it. “I always assumed that the first rule would be don’t leave Rift portals where anybody could fall through.”

Jack bristles under Ianto’s admonishing gaze and return the glare, adding in just a hint of hurt and defensiveness. “I got Tosh to recalculate the Rift formula; she factored in the open gateway. It’ll close as soon as we get back home.” He steps closer and lowers his voice so that only Ianto can hear. “I wanted to fetch you myself.”

Twin feelings of pleasure and resentment rise in Ianto, and he bites down on his lip to keep from replying as the emotions battle for supremacy. There’s a part of him that reacts against the notion that he needs rescuing – although he does, the logical part of his brain knows this well – and he doesn’t see how difficult stepping through an open portal could be, but he knows his irritation will be short lived. It usually is when it comes to Jack.

Ianto’s warring thoughts halt as he casts aside his exasperation and embraces the gentle warmth that flows through him when he looks at Jack. It’s not love, he’s not the type to believe in sunshine and flowers and happy endings, it’s something more akin to gratefulness and respect, knowing that support is offered willingly. Jack always brings his men home.

Ianto nods and keeps his voice soft and low. “Thank you.”

“Tick-tock,” Harkness says, and taps his watch. “Get your business sorted and get off my turf.”

A strange look of confusion appears on Ianto’s face, made even more emphatic by the completely opposite twist of Jack’s feature. He looks almost knowing, Ianto thinks, as if he’d expected this sudden regression to careless, casual disregard for the world at large.

“Give me a minute,” Jack whispers in Ianto’s ear as he brushes past and gestures for Harkness to follow him.

The desire to creep closer, to listen in, is more tempting than Ianto thinks it should be, and he is more pleased than disappointed when his body chooses to listen to his conscience. He’s never had much time for the hovering devil on his shoulder. 

Give me a minute could very well be code for I’m going to discuss you behind your back, although he’s not sure Jack – one of them, at least – possesses that much subtlety. Still, it makes for an interesting challenge.

He has only body language to go by, a physical barometer of emotions that tells him everything and nothing in the same instance. One man looks insistent, the other stubborn. One man steps forward, the other closes the distance.

The confrontation is almost laughable in its absurdity, but Ianto thinks he would find it much funnier if the fragile balance of difference didn’t threaten to tip over into clashing resentment.

He looks away when Jack glances over at him, embarrassed to have been caught staring. He’s both mystified and intrigued by the flow of the conversation being played out in silence before him, but he knows better than to interrupt. From the terse whispers too low to hear and the cold, hard stares, he can deduce that there is something that Jack and the Captain don’t agree on. It’s probably not about him, now that he thinks about it, but he doesn’t care to speculate.

“Fine,” Jack says, and Ianto almost does himself an injury in his haste to spin around and, yes, edge slightly closer. He may not pay much heed to temptation but he’s not perfect either.

Both men are smiling, betraying no sign of their earlier tension, and that surprises Ianto more than the frustrated conflict did. It’s one of the many things that he finds disconcerting about Jack; sometimes anger evaporates like a drop of water in a frying pan, at other times he stews for years, decades, centuries.

“Say your goodbyes,” Jack says as passes Ianto, returning to the alley’s end and pointedly looking away.

“Well,” Ianto says and stops, unable to strike upon the correct farewell for the occasion. That’s the thing about time travel, it’s going to be a hell of a lot longer for Jack than it will be for himself. Bye, see you soon won’t cut it.

“Well,” the Captain repeats, and shakes his head slowly. “I just realised, I’m not used to this. I’m usually the one doing the leaving.”

“Some things never change.” Ianto’s tone is wry but affectionate, his smile rueful.

“I don’t like being left behind.”

“I know.” Ianto bites back a jibe about getting used to it – he’s forgiven Jack for leaving but some days it helps to have anger to focus on – and nods slightly, his expression softening to one of understanding.

He narrows his eyes suddenly, staring at the Captain with frank curiosity. Something, a slight slurring of words, a faint drifting of glassy eyes, tells him that his problem has been solved.

The side effects of retcon are many and varied but the first indicator is usually sudden tiredness. An abnormal symptom for the lively Captain.

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll go and drown my sorrows at the Officer’s club, see if anything interesting pops up.” The Captain shrugs casually and tilts his head back to stare at the overcast sky. He sways, and thrusts out a hand to steady himself against the brick-lined wall. “Think I might get a few hours of sleep before I go.”

“That’s probably for the best.” There’s not much else Ianto can say, sleep is an infinitely better alternative to drinking away even more memories at the Officer’s club, but this is Jack.

Jack, who took the retcon willingly – more or less – and shouldn’t be left alone to suffer the effects of amnesia. 

“Goodbye,” Ianto says, and hates himself for running away from a classic case of retcon-induced disorientation. Leaving Jack in a back street with no memory of the past few days seems a cruel punishment for a man who has done nothing but help him. Still, it is necessary.

“Bye.” The Captain blinks as if to clear a creeping haze of disorientation and smiles absently. For a moment, Ianto can convince himself, or at least pretend, that everything is as it should be. “Goodbye,” Jack repeats, stronger this time and with more certainty. He reaches out a wavering hand, and draws it back more quickly than a man with amnesia drugs flowing through his veins should be able to. With a final wink, he turns and walks away.

Ianto’s brow furrows in thought as he watches the Captain stagger away, swaying from side to side. After everything he has been through in the past few days, it comes as a surprise to discover the strangest part of the situation was Jack’s ability to switch personalities in the space of two heartbeats. It’s even stranger when he factors in the possible correlation between the regression to casual indifference with his Jack’s arrival. It confuses him just as much as time travel does.

“Will he be all right?” he asks, turning back to Jack.

“I always am. Besides, the adventure he’s about to have would make anybody forget the past few days.”

“Oh.” It’s not a sight of disappointment, not really. He’ll keep telling himself that until he believes it. If Ianto is not mistaken, and he rarely is when it comes to Jack, the Doctor is about to materialise in a London alley – probably the one they’re in at the moment, knowing fate’s sense of humour – and whisk the Captain away to times and places unknown. He’s read the reports, heard the stories. Even if he hadn’t, the faintly wistful tone in Jack’s voice is enough.

Or it could be that Jack is about to discover an intergalactic sex club in Old Brompton Road. Maintaining established timelines aside, Ianto would actually prefer that. There’s something comforting about Jack’s preoccupation with sex.

Still, this is what he has wished for since he woke up in 1941; he has a way home, the future won’t be remembered, and he is with the right Jack.

He walks through the portal.

***

Ianto wakes in stages, emerging from his dreams to a disorienting haze of memories, and then the fierce flame of reality. 

The faint smell of familiar washing powder on his sheets is the first thing he notices as his senses awaken and begin to take in his surroundings. A warm hand on his hip is the next stimulus to be processed, followed by deep, even breaths that ghost across the back of his neck.

He rolls over, eyes still closed to the start of the day, and reaches for Jack, obeying the commands of touch and sounds to guide his hands. He rests his head against Jack’s chest and lets himself drowse in the regular rise and fall of his makeshift pillow. 

“Hello,” Jack whispers, shifting and pulling up the slipping duvet to cover them.

Ianto hums blearily at the feeling of words reverberating beneath his head, a rumble that shakes him from his half-slumber. He grunts a tired reply and doesn’t react when an arm curls around him and pulls him close. “Jack,” he mumbles, uncertain as to whether it’s a protestation or an encouragement.

“Time to get up.” Jack unwinds himself from Ianto and sits up, stretching and wincing at the sharp crack of his stiff neck.

“No.” Ianto can count the number of times he’s succumbed to the desire to sleep in on one hand, and he hates adding to the count, but he can make an exception this time. He grabs Jack by the arm and pulls him back down, ignoring the surprised splutter and tensing of muscles under his hand.

“No?” Jack rolls over onto his stomach and props himself up with his elbows, steadying himself.

“Why should we?”

“Because I’m the boss and I say so.” There’s a tender look beneath the smug grin on Jack’s face, almost as if he doesn’t quite know whether Ianto will take it as the joke it’s supposed to be. 

It’s surprising, frankly, and despite feeling far too tired to bother with anything else, Ianto can’t quite suppress the twinge of hurt he feels. He’d thought they were past treading carefully around each other, and he finds himself wondering whether their conversation is really about getting up. “And we’re in my bed.”

“True,” Jack says laughingly. “Guess you win this round.”

“Will you talk to me?” If there is one facet of Jack’s personality that never changes, a central tenet that transcends time, it is that he doesn’t like being questioned. Ianto figured out long ago that convincing Jack to talk was far easier than demanding answers. It’s the only way either of them stay sane.

“What do you want me to say?”

Ianto narrows his eyes in reply, surveying and speculating whether he will receive an answer to his next question. He wants to know, and it probably shows on his face, but that will not sway Jack if he is set in an idea. Still, he has to try.

“How did you find me?” It’s one of several questions he has, and possibly not even the one which intrigues him the most, but it is a good way of broaching the subject. If only Jack will see it that way.

“I... you...” Jack stumbles over the words spilling from his mouth in a nonsensical order, and huffs in frustration. “You were gone but I could still see you. Maybe Bilis’ Rift Manipulator triggered my memories, or maybe it was something else, but you were there and I was here and I didn’t know how or why but I just knew. ”

It’s Jack’s honesty that surprises Ianto more than the words. The explanation makes sense, at least in regard to recovering retconned memories and he’ll give it more thought later when he has the time, but the way Jack willingly revealed it – without much eloquence and with no real detail, but that doesn’t matter – hits Ianto for six. 

“That’s... surprising,” Ianto says, and rolls his eyes. Ineloquence seems to be catching.

Jack hums in agreement before frowning pensively. “I hate the Time Agency for stealing my memories and now I find out I’m no better. Makes me wonder if they had a good reason.”

“That’s something you might never know,” Ianto says softly. It’s not exactly helpful, and probably downright annoying but the subject matter doesn’t give him much space to offer comfort. “Is that what you, other you, meant about witnessing something that changes you and then not remembering it?”

“I think so. I guess.”

Ianto sighs. The openness was nice while it lasted.

“It’s just,” Jack bursts out then stops, jumping to his feet and pacing the room restlessly. “Never mind.”

Ianto remains silent, choosing not to delve into the inner workings of Jack’s mind. That’s how they communicate; he waits as long as he has to and Jack eventually speaks.

“I’ve been thinking.” There’s a faint sheen of sweat on Jack’s forehead, and Ianto frowns in concern and gets up, padding over to his Captain. He’d have thought they were over the stressful part of the situation.

“I wasn’t a very nice person before I met the Doctor.”

“You seemed nice enough to me.” Jack’s mind games aside, he was nice. Different to this Jack, but certainly not cruel.

“That’s the thing, I shouldn’t have been. When I met the Doctor, I was running scam after scam and I didn’t care whose money I took. It even took a while to feel guilty about it after I started travelling with him. He changed that in me, but not in the way that I thought.”

“I don’t think I follow.” Ianto shakes his head, trying to find the tendril of sense in Jack’s words. It’s there, he can sense it, but it remains hidden in a tangle of confusion.

“You know how retcon works, it can mask memories but it can’t erase them completely. Maybe, at a subconscious level, I remembered you. Maybe that’s what changed me.”

Ianto opens his mouth then closes it, unable to find an adequate reply amid the jumble of thoughts swirling through his head. 

“And,” Jack continues, not waiting for a reply, “at some point I discovered that I liked myself a lot better when I wasn’t lying.”

It occurs to Ianto to ask why and especially how this change in Jack was supposed to have occurred but he still struggles to find the words. Instead, he leans forward to kiss Jack.

This is what they need. No questions, no explanations, just time and opportunity. They suit each other, Ianto thinks as their kiss deepens and they stand chest to chest. It is comfort and affection and care and soon there is skin gliding over skin, the force behind ravaging kisses blending with the feather light touches of trailing fingers to create an almost harmonic chaos. It is a language Ianto speaks well.

He tugs at Jack, his fingers clutching at muscled arms and a hand wrapping around a bare nape, and sliding backwards, leading his lover to the bed. The backs of Ianto’s knees hit the low bed and he lets himself fall, releasing his hold on Jack and hitting the mattress with a piercing shriek of the springs beneath him.

“Close your eyes,” Jack says, looking down at Ianto with burning desire.

Ianto blinks, his eyelids at once obeying and denying. “What?”

“Trust me.”

The feel of crisp sheets against his back, infused with a faint hint of Jack’s scent that he can’t get out no matter how many times he washes them comforts Ianto, lets him know he is safe. He closes his eyes slowly, his cautious side warring with the dutiful part of him that insists he follow Jack’s every instruction without delay. It’s not about trust; there’s never been any doubt that he trusts Jack as much as he trusts himself (and sometimes even more so.)

It’s the loss of control that worries him, the shadowy creatures of doubt that creep in out of the dark and set his body and mind on edge. There’s trust and daring on one side and uncertainty and recklessness on the other, at least in Ianto’s perception. He’s had enough of being a slave to external factors, the bizarre events that turn his world upside down and leave him gasping for breath. He may live a life of danger and extremes but he needs to retain the control of his own life. 

Still, this is his choice. He keeps his eyes closed.

“Good.” Jack’s breathed approval is soft, probably not meant for Ianto’s ears, but it drifts down anyway, bringing with it the comforting sound of pleased satisfaction.

The sounds and sensations in the room feel sharper to Ianto’s remaining senses, every noise finds his ears with ease and every action creates a flow of heat and energy that slides against his bare skin and alerts him to Jack’s movements.

A hand on his chest, warm and heavy over his heart, has Ianto drawing a quick breath, the touch creating a rising wave of desire within him which crests with a shudder and a low moan. “Jack.”

A chuckle floats down to tease at Ianto’s patience, and he reaches out a blind hand to search the elusive air, his eyes remaining steadfastly closed. The pressure on his chest lessens, Jack’s palm lifting until only the pads of calloused fingers remain. They trace an unknown pattern, looping and dragging across the plane of Ianto’s chest with a fire that scalds every digit, every groove of every fingerprint into appreciative flesh.

“Jack,” Ianto says again, barely managing to bite back the growing desire to beg, plead, anything as long as Jack does something more than touch.

This is what he missed. The trust, the knowledge that he can ask for and receive what he wants, no matter how garbled or needy his request is. He can ask with a single name and know he is heard with another.

“Ianto,” Jack says, and laughs.

The mattress dips in two places when Jack kneels over Ianto, the springs creaking a new protest against the extra weight. They really need a better bed, Ianto thinks absently as his thoughts trawl through the muddy waters of disorientation and emerge on the other side, more certain and more turned on than he can bear.

He shifts under Jack slightly, testing the bounds of his movement. With a half smile and still without opening his eyes, Ianto surges up suddenly and twists, pushing at Jack with insistent arms and straddling his hips to hold him down.

“I got impatient,” Ianto says, taking in the surprised look on Jack’s face. If he was a prouder man, he’d stop to congratulate himself. It’s not every day that he wins one over his Captain.

“So I see.” Jack laughs and runs a hand up Ianto’s thigh, sliding further around and stroking at his entrance with light, teasing strokes.

Ianto lets out a moan and presses down, grinding his cock against Jack’s and thrusting back onto the thick fingers drawing circles on sensitive skin. Desire and desperation battle for supremacy and he pants at the force of the heady rush that sweeps through him.

“Oh God, do that again.”

Jack chuckles, and halts the path of his hand, thrusting up with his hips and causing Ianto’s hissed “bastard” to lengthen into a keening moan. “Keep still,” he says huskily.

It occurs to Ianto to refuse, to move as much as he likes and damn his teasing lover to a night of embattled frustration. Only there’s not one part of his body that hasn’t seized up from tense anticipation and his base instincts.

He holds as still as he can when Jack slides his hands up to grip at both hips and grits his teeth as he fights the overwhelming urge to test the strength of Jack’s grasp. He can feel the pressure of individual fingers spanning the length of his hipbones, tight enough to hold but not to bruise. He can feel the flex of muscles beneath him, contracting and releasing when Jack sits up, his hands coming up to brace against Ianto’s back.

And then he can feel lips on his own, tempting, challenging, the point of origin in their private world of desire. It is both new and not, predictable and surprising, and if Ianto allows himself to fall prey to the small hint of winsome longing that occasionally touches the surface of his emotions when he’s with Jack, he has a good excuse. He is happy to be back in his own time.

Jack rocks into him and he gasps, his eyelids slipping to half mast and his head tipping back as he pushes forward in reply, creating a slow, seemingly unending motion that slows and rushes with every chosen movement. It feels as if the Earth has halted on its axis, and they are bound to this moment.

Then Ianto’s fingers clutch and cut into Jack’s shoulders as a spark of pleasure ignites a fire that spreads through his body and mind.

It is the rush of time and space and everything in between.

He is home.


End file.
